Universal Human Rights Month: Home

Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice

Call number: 323 D718U 2013

In the third edition of his classic work, revised extensively and updated to include recent developments on the international scene, Jack Donnelly explains and defends a richly interdisciplinary account of human rights as universal rights. He shows that any conception of human rights—and the idea of human rights itself—is historically specific and contingent.

Since publication of the first edition in 1989, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice has justified Donnelly’s claim that "conceptual clarity, the fruit of sound theory, can facilitate action. At the very least it can help to unmask the arguments of dictators and their allies."

Speak Truth to Power

Call number: 323.0922 C92S 2000

Speak Truth to Power presents an inspiring rainbow of heroes from more than thirty-five countries and five continents. In searing and uplifting interviews, veteran human rights defender Kerry Kennedy Cuomo examines the quality of courage with women and men who are dramatically changing the course of events in their communities and countries.Imprisoned, tortured, and threatened with death, they speak with compelling eloquence on subjects to which they have devoted their lives and for which they have been willing to sacrifice -- from free expression to the rule of law, from women's rights to religious liberty, from environmental defense to eradicating slavery, from access to capitol to the right to due process.Accompanying the interviews are a powerful series of portraits by world-renowned photographer Eddie Adams. This is his first book, representing two years of crisscrossing the globe to make these deeply felt and insightful images of courageous individuals, including the internationally celebrated, such as Vaclav Havel, Baltasar Garzón, Helen Prejean, Marian Wright Edelman, and Nobel Prize Laureates the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Oscar Arias Sánchez, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, José Ramos-Horta, and Bobby Muller. But the vast majority of the defenders are unknown and (as yet) unsung beyond their national boundaries, such as former sex slave and leading abolitionist Juliana Dogbadzi of Ghana, domestic violence activist Marina Pisklakova of Russia, mental disability rights advocate Gabor Gombos of Hungary, and more than thirty others.Speak Truth to Power is accompanied by a major exhibition opening at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., then traveling nationally, beginning in January 2001 at the Newseum, New York. The authors also plan a fully integrated Web Site as well as an education and advocacy campaign by Amnesty International.In addition, a theatrical presentation, written by Ariel Dorfman, based on the stories featured in the book, will be performed by internationally known actors, including Glenn Close, Edward James Olmos, Sigourney Weaver, Alfre Woodard, and others, opening at the J. F. Kennedy Center, September 19, 2000.

Ideal Illusions

Call number: 323.0973 P334I 2010

From A Noted Historian And Foreign-Policy Analyst, A Groundbreaking Critique Of The Troubling Symbiosis Between Washington And The Human Rights Movement The United States has long been hailed as a powerful force for global human rights. Now, drawing on thousands of documents from the CIA, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and development agencies, James Peck shows in blunt detail how Washington has shaped human rights into a potent ideological weapon for purposes having little to do with rights and everything to do with furthering America's global reach. Using the words of Washington's leaders when they are speaking among themselves, Peck tracks the rise of human rights from its dismissal in the Cold War years as "fuzzy minded" to its calculated adoption, after the Vietnam War, as a rationale for American foreign engagement. He considers such milestones as the fight for Soviet dissidents, Tiananmen Square, and today's War on Terror, exposing in the process how the human rights movement has too often failed to challenge Washington's strategies and has, instead, been exploited for political advantage. A gripping and elegant work of analysis, Ideal Illusions argues that the movement must break free from Washington if it is to develop a truly uncompromising critique of power in all its forms.

A World Made New

Call number: 323 G485W 2001

A new book on the beloved first lady chronicles the achievement she was most proud of--the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--and describes her intensive efforts to forge this powerful document in the turbulent period following World War II. 30,000 first printing.

Human and Civil Rights

Call number: REF 323 L562H 2006

The material in this collection provides insight into emerging concepts of rights and a global perspective of successes and failures in civil rights movements. Each of the primary sources includes a summary of key facts, an introduction describing the historical background and contributing factors for the primary source, the significance of the piece, and further resources on the topic, including books, periodicals, websites, and audio and visual material. The documents are preceded by a chronology that begins with the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679 and ends with the London bombings in 2005. The articles themselves begin with the French National Assembly's 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and conclude with a 2003 article about attacks on Afghan girls' schools. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Crimes Against Humanity

Call number: 323.0904 R546C 2000

The controversial story of how the human rights idea has come to dominate world politics, from Kosovo to East Timor. For centuries it seemed an impossible dream that international institutions could ever tell nation-states how to treat their own citizens. But after a century in which 160 million lives have been lost to war, genocide, and torture, the human rights movement is gathering popular and political strength, as evidenced by the war-crimes trials for Bosnia and Rwanda, the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court, the arrest of General Pinochet, and the NATO attack on Serbian sovereignty to punish the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo. Crimes Against Humanity is the first work to weave disparate strands of history, philosophy, international law, and politics into a comprehensive and engrossing account of this increasingly significant movement. Geoffrey Robertson, one of the world's leading human-rights lawyers, reveals with passion and precision how human rights have penetrated the legal armor of the sovereign state. He explains how an identification of the crime against humanity, first defined at Nuremburg, has become the key that unlocks the closed door of state sovereignty, and that holds political leaders responsible for the evils they visit upon humankind.

The History of Human Rights

Call number: 323.09 IS3H 2004

Micheline Ishay recounts the dramatic struggle for human rights across the ages in a book that brilliantly synthesizes historical and intellectual developments from the Mesopotamian Codes of Hammurabi to today's era of globalization. As she chronicles the clash of social movements, ideas, and armies that have played a part in this struggle, Ishay illustrates how the history of human rights has evolved from one era to the next through texts, cultural traditions, and creative expression. Writing with verve and extraordinary range, she develops a framework for understanding contemporary issues from the debate over globalization to the intervention in Kosovo to the climate for human rights after September 11, 2001. The only comprehensive history of human rights available, the book will be essential reading for anyone concerned with humankind's quest for justice and dignity.Ishay structures her chapters around six core questions that have shaped human rights debate and scholarship: What are the origins of human rights? Why did the European vision of human rights triumph over those of other civilizations? Has socialism made a lasting contribution to the legacy of human rights? Are human rights universal or culturally bound? Must human rights be sacrificed to the demands of national security? Is globalization eroding or advancing human rights? As she explores these questions, Ishay also incorporates notable documents—writings, speeches, and political statements—from activists, writers, and thinkers throughout history.

A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Call number: 323 W834V 1995

Mary Wollstonecraft is remembered principally as the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and there has been a tendency to view her most famous work in isolation. Yet Wollstonecraft's pronouncements about women grew out of her reflections on men, and her views on the female sex constituted an integral part of a wider moral and political critique of her times that she first fully formulated in A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). This fully annotated edition brings these two works together.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (eBook on Hoopla)

Keen to learn but short on time? Get to grips with the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in next to no time with this concise guide.

50Minutes.com provides a clear and engaging analysis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the wake of the Second World War and its atrocities, the international community decided to come together to establish peace and accord freedoms and dignity to all individuals. This led to the founding of the United Nations, which soon tasked a Drafting Committee, including Eleanor Roosevelt and René Cassin, to write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document would provide guidance on the fundamental freedoms that had been slowly acknowledged over the past few centuries, but would still run into opposition and difficulties.

In just 50 minutes you will:

• Understand the context surrounding the foundation of the United Nations and the decision to draft the Declaration

• Discover the history of human rights across the world and early examples of documents granting rights and freedoms to individuals

• Learn more about the struggle to enforce these rights and the ways in which they have still been flouted across the world

Universal Human Rights (EBSCOhost eBook)

Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (EBSCOhost eBook)

In the third edition of his classic work, revised extensively and updated to include recent developments on the international scene, Jack Donnelly explains and defends a richly interdisciplinary account of human rights as universal rights. He shows that any conception of human rights—and the idea of human rights itself—is historically specific and contingent. Since publication of the first edition in 1989, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice has justified Donnelly's claim that conceptual clarity, the fruit of sound theory, can facilitate action. At the very least it can help to unmask the arguments of dictators and their allies.'

Human Rights: a Very Short Introduction (Hoopla eAudiobook)

Today it is usually not long before a problem gets expressed as a human rights issue. Indeed, human rights law continues to gain increasing attention internationally, and must move quickly in order to keep up with a social world that changes so rapidly.

This Very Short Introduction, in its second edition, brings the issue of human rights up to date, considering the current controversies surrounding the movement. Discussing torture and arbitrary detention in the context of counter terrorism, Andrew Clapham also considers new challenges to human rights in the context of privacy, equality and the right to health. Looking at the philosophical justification for rights, the historical origins of human rights, and how they are formed in law, Clapham explains what our human rights actually are, what they might be, and where the human rights movement is heading.