Both global and regional human rights treaties have established international institutions offering recourse if a State party fails to comply with its obligations under the treaty. Many of these institutions have jurisdiction to consider complaints brought by individuals claiming that a State party has violated the rights enumerated in the treaty. However, these same institutions appear no longer merely to confine themselves to considering individual petitions. Due to the growing number of complaints, they have become increasingly preoccupied with managing their workload. The present volume...

Are human rights universal? Universalists and cultural relativists have long been debating this question. In INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS, Alison Dundes Renteln reconciles the two positions and argues that, within the vast array of cultural practices and values, it is possible to create structural equivalents to rights in all societies. She poses that empirical cross-cultural research can reveal universal human rights standards, then demonstrates it through an analysis of the concept of measured retribution.

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS is a classic socio-legal...