Human Rights at the UN – The Political History of Universal Justice de Roger Normand

Human Rights at the UN – The Political History of Universal Justice

Roger Normand

Sarah Zaidi

Human rights activists Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi provide a broad political history of the emergence and development of the human rights movement in the 20th century through the crucible of the United Nations, focusing on the hopes and expectations, concrete power struggles, national rivalries, and bureaucratic politics that molded the international system of human rights law. The book emphasizes the period before and after the creation of the UN, when human rights ideas and proposals were shaped and transformed by the hard-edged realities of power politics and bureaucratic imperatives. It also analyzes the expansion of the human rights framework in response to demands for equitable development after decolonization and organized efforts by women, minorities, and other disadvantaged groups to secure international recognition of their rights.

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Cuprins

IntroductionPart I: Human Rights Foundation in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 1. First Expressions of International Human Rights Ideas; 2. The Decline of Human Rights between World Wars; 3. The Human Rights Crusade in the Second World War; 4. Human Rights Politics in the United Nations CharterPart II: UN Negotiations and the Modern Human Rights Framework 5. Laying the Human Rights Foundation; 6. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; 7. The CovenantsPart III: The Impact of Civil Society and Decolonization 8. The Human Rights of Special Groups; 9. The Right to Development; 10. Looking at Human Rights since 1990 and in the Future

Recenzii

"Expert and rigorous in methodology, engaging in style, pragmatic yet principled and visionary, this indispensable book is accessible to students, activists, scholars, and practitioners. We all need to understand how and why this system came to be the way it is today if we are to re-appropriate its humane vision and re-enact its humanizing power." Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Emory University School of Law[I]t is a must read, as for on the most part it also reflects the power struggles and cynicism, which for instance, prevented a strong and effective UN human rights system...Zaidi and Normand, both human rights advocates for many years, have prepared a quite critical, readable and highly interesting book...Despite the usually attributed international character of the UN, the authors succeed in deconstructing the myth of the UN as uniquely global effort and identify it as a mainly US-sponsored project...The book further provides very interesting insights into the struggles, which accompanied the debates on the UN Charter...The book further impresses by offering an elucidating and detailed depiction of the struggles between the western powers, Soviet allies, and Third World governments...Normand and Zaidi have presented a quite readable account of the history of the UN human rights system. Katja Naumann, History.Transnational, Jan 2009