Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Human Rights

Human Rights at the Crossroads brings together preeminent and emerging voices within human rights studies to think creatively about problems beyond their own disciplines, and to critically respond to what appear to be...

The word and concept of victim bear a heavy weight. To represent oneself or to be represented as a victim is often a first and vital step toward having one's suffering and one's claims to rights socially and legally recognized. Yet to name oneself or be called a victim is a risky claim, and social scientists must struggle to avoid erasing either survivors' experience of suffering or their agency and resourcefulness. Histories of Victimhood engages with this dilemma, asking how one may recognize and acknowledge suffering without essentializing affected communities and...

For the last thirty years, documented human rights violations have been met with an unprecedented rise in demands for accountability. This trend challenges the use of amnesties which typically foreclose opportunities for criminal prosecutions that some argue are crucial to transitional justice. Recent developments have seen amnesties circumvented, overturned, and resisted by lawyers, states, and judiciaries committed to ending impunity for human rights violations. Yet, despite this global movement, the use of amnesties since the 1970s has not declined.

Amnesties, Accountability,...

Are human rights universal? The immediate response is "yes, of course." However, that simple affirmation assumes agreement about definitions of the "human" as well as what a human is entitled to under law, bringing us quickly to concepts such as freedom, property, and the inalienability of both. The assumption that we all mean the same things by these terms carries much political import, especially given that different communities (national, ethnic, religious, gendered) enact some of the most basic categories of human experience (self, home, freedom, sovereignty) differently. But whereas...

Humanitarian aid workers increasingly remain present in contexts of violence and are injured, kidnapped, and killed as a result. Since 9/11 and in response to these dangers, aid organizations have fortified themselves to shield their staff and programs from outside threats. In Aid in Danger, Larissa Fast critically examines the causes of violence against aid workers and the consequences of the approaches aid agencies use to protect themselves from attack.

Based on more than a decade of research, Aid in Danger explores the assumptions underpinning existing explanations...

At the end of Liberia's thirteen-year civil war, the devastated population struggled to rebuild their country and come to terms with their experiences of violence. During the first decade of postwar reconstruction, hundreds of humanitarian organizations created programs that were intended to heal trauma, prevent gendered violence, rehabilitate former soldiers, and provide psychosocial care to the transitioning populace. But the implementation of these programs was not always suited to the specific mental health needs of the population or easily reconciled with the broader aims of...