[4] Karapatan is a member of the International League of Peoples' Struggle,[8] Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Civicus World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the SOS - Torture Network of the World Organisation Against Torture, and it also co-convenes the Ecumenical Voice for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines and the Philippine Universal Periodic Review Watch.

[9] Karapatan was founded in 1995 by human rights activists who were active in the resistance movements against the regime of then-Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos.

[10] In 2007, the organization's former secretary general Marie Hilao-Enriquez presented on extra-judicial political killings before the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, chaired by US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Cal).

[11][12] In 2019, after the Philippine government accused Karapatan of being a front for the Communist Party of the Philippines, which the government had labeled as a terrorist group in 2017, Karapatan filed several complaints with United Nations officials.

[7] Zara Alvarez, former education director of Karapatan's regional chapter in Negros, was shot dead on 17 August 2020.