Human rights in transition

Abstract

This edited volume brings together leading scholars in international law and international human rights to reflect upon the future of human rights, but with a firm grounding in an assessment of the present and the (recent and distant) past. It is neither uniformly critical nor uniformly celebratory of the possible futures for human rights law and politics. It thus eschews the polarized and one-sided approach that can too easily dominate either side of the debate. The result is a very rich set of essays that delve deeply into specific topics in human rights law and practice, and work outwards from a rigorous analysis of the past and present, to an argument about how to think about the future. No author is overtly concerned with saving or damning the human rights enterprise. Instead, each combines critical analysis with sober reflection to provide a fertile point of view on the present from which intimations of the future can be discerned.