The Politics of Human Rights Protection

by Jan Knippers Black

Overview

This important work argues that human rights abuse is not necessarily about distant places and peoples, and it is neither incomprehensible nor inevitable. Despite the appearance of consensus about the importance of human rights protection, abuse—with its common core in inequality—is expanding at all levels from the petty to the profound. Designed to inform and inspire, this book also provides the analytical and strategic tools needed for the next generation of activists. Jan Knippers Black offers a fundamental reexamination of the basic terms and concepts, legal and institutional foundations, controversies, cleavages, threats and strategies associated with human rights.

Black's perspective is holistic, stressing the relevance of human rights issues to all human needs and endeavors and requiring multidisciplinary analysis. Chapters analyzing connections among political, economic, ecological, and cultural impacts on social and individual well-being are accompanied by case studies highlighting lessons learned from success or failure. This empowering book seeks to promote an "each for all" commitment, breaking through barriers of ignorance and apathy, denial and despair, so that advocates and activists can work to prevent future atrocities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742540521
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/16/2010
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jan Knippers Black is professor in the Graduate School of International Policy Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. For an interview with the author on Women News Network, please click here. To view the author discussing her book on Evening Insight, please click here.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Human Rights Perspective and the Need for Impact Assessment
Part I: The Politics of a Human Rights Agenda
Chapter 2: What's in a Name? Deconstructing Human Rights Terms and Concepts
Chapter 3: The Dialectics of Building an International Human Rights Regime
Chapter 4: Human Rights Cleavages and Controversies: The Discourse
Part II: The Right to Eat: Social and Economic Rights
Chapter 5: The Globalization of Vulnerability
Chapter 6: From the Ashes: Argentina's Return from Meltdown
Part III: The Right to Belong: Civil and Political Rights
Chapter 7: Participation and Accountability
Chapter 8: Wayfarers in a Walled-Up World
Chapter 9: Chile's Long Way Home
Part IV: The Right to be Different: Cultural Rights
Chapter 10: The Political Dimensions of Diversity
Chapter 11: Feminism, Democracy, and Self-Determination: The Taiwanese Experience
Part V: The Right to the Commons: Environmental Rights
Chapter 12: The Naked Ape in Nature: Master or Guardian?
Chapter 13: China's Three Gorges: The Dam and the Damned
Part VI: The Right to a Just Peace
Chapter 14: From Sustainable War to Sustainable Peace
Chapter 15: Against All Odds: East Timor's Quest for Independence
Part VII: The Elephant in the Room
Chapter 16: Empire as a State of War
Chapter 17: Terror and the War to End All Rights
Part VIII: Strategic Focus: No Promised Land in Denial Valley
Chapter 18: Cautious Mainstreaming, Constructive Subversion
Conclusion: Playing from Strength
Appendix: Human Rights Impact Assessment: Tips and Tools

Editorial Reviews

Black has a keen eye for the abuses of power, and especially for the ways that the concentration of economic wealth impacts respect for human rights. Full of a savvy distrust for politicians and the powerful everywhere, Black nevertheless prioritizes making governments responsible.. .. Black includes some helpful references to templates developed by European agencies, especially for assessing economic and development projects, but applicable to other policies as well.

Fellowship

A valuable addition to the literature, full of examples, case studies, and lessons learned from all over the world. Crisscrossing disciplinary boundaries, Black offers effective strategies for human rights protection.--Julianne Cartwright-Traylor, former chair, board of directors, Amnesty International USA

Jan Knippers Black, a great advocate for human rights and against U.S. international interventionism and war, shows convincingly how practical advance activism can prevent disastrous impacts on human rights.--Fred Harris, former U.S. Senator and coeditor of Locked in the Poorhouse

With her usual verve, clarity, scholarship, and even humor, Jan Black gives us a fascinating guidebook to the past and future of human rights and a practical guide to building a more equitable and caring world.--Riane Eisler, author of The Real Wealth of Nations

From the Publisher

A stark and powerful portrayal of rights under challenge, drawing lessons particularly from circumstances in which justice has prevailed over impunity. Black's deep understanding of her topic is highlighted by her masterful analysis of the Chilean situation before, during, and after military dictatorship enshrouded the country.

Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia

With her usual verve, clarity, scholarship, and even humor, Jan Black gives us a fascinating guidebook to the past and future of human rights and a practical guide to building a more equitable and caring world.

Rianne Eisler

Jan Knippers Black, a great advocate for human rights and against U.S. international interventionism and war, shows convincingly how practical advance activism can prevent disastrous impacts on human rights.

Fred Harris

A valuable addition to the literature, full of examples, case studies, and lessons learned from all over the world. Crisscrossing disciplinary boundaries, Black offers effective strategies for human rights protection.

Julianne Cartwright-Traylor

Jan Black has written a one-of-a-kind primer on protecting the sanctity of human rights—legal, moral, social, political, economic, and cultural. If ever there was a scholarly preemptive strike against future abuses of human rights, this book is it.

Peter Kornbluh

A stark and powerful portrayal of rights under challenge, drawing lessons particularly from circumstances in which justice has prevailed over impunity. Black's deep understanding of her topic is highlighted by her masterful analysis of the Chilean situation before, during, and after military dictatorship enshrouded the country.

Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia

With her usual verve, clarity, scholarship, and even humor, Jan Black gives us a fascinating guidebook to the past and future of human rights and a practical guide to building a more equitable and caring world.

Riane Eisler

This very timely work challenges us to probe the systemic roots of rights abuse, to see that so long as some among us are unprotected, none of us is safe, and that changing the course of history is not a spectator sport—we all rise or fall together.

Benjamin Todd Jealous