The Routledge History of Human Rights

The Routledge History of Human Rights is an interdisciplinary collection that provides historical and global perspectives on a range of human rights themes of the past 150 years.The volume is made up of 34 original contributions. It opens with the emergence of a "new internationalism" in the mid-nineteenth century, examines the interwar, League of Nations, and the United Nations eras of human rights and decolonization, and ends with the serious challenges for rights norms, laws, institutions, and multilateral cooperation in the national security world after 9/11. These essays provide a big picture of the strategic, political, and changing nature of human rights work in the past and into the present day, and reveal the contingent nature of historical developments. Highlighting local, national, and non-Western voices and struggles, the volume contributes to overcoming Eurocentric biases that burden human rights histories and studies of international law. It analyzes regions and organizations that are often overlooked. The volume thus offers readers a new and broader perspective on the subject.International in coverage and containing cutting-edge interpretations, the volume provides an overview of major themes and suggestions for future research. This is the perfect book for those interested in social justice, grass roots activism, and international politics and society.

List of maps and imagesList of contributorsAcknowledgements1. Introduction: An Open-Ended and Contingent History of Human RightsJean H. Quataert and Lora Wildenthal Part 1. The New Internationalism2. John Anderson - Slave, Refugee, and Freedom Fighter: A Human Rights Campaign in the Age of EmpireCaroline Shaw3. Investigating and Ameliorating Atrocities in the Nineteenth Century: International Commissions of Inquiry in the Balkans (1876-1880)Benjamin E. Brockman-Hawe4. Reclaiming Congo Reform for the History of Human RightsMairi S. MacDonald5. The Red Cross and the Laws of War, 1863-1949: International Rights Activism before Human Rights Kimberly Lowe Part 2. The Interwar Era: The League of Nations6. United in their Quest for Peace? Transnational Women Activists between the World WarsMarie Sandell7. The "Rights of Man" and Sex Equality: International Human Rights Discourses in the 1930sRegula LudiPart 3. The Formative UN EraA. UN Treaty Making8. Social and Economic Rights: The Struggle for Equivalent ProtectionClaire-Michelle Smyth9. Islam and UN Human Rights Treaty Ratification in the Middle East: The Impact of International Law on DiplomacyRachel A. George10. When the War Came: The Child Rights Convention and the Conflation of Human Rights and the Laws of WarLinde LindkvistB. Decolonization11. "Why Then Call It the Declaration of Human Rights?" The Failures of Universal Human Rights in Colonial Africa’s Internationally Supervised Territories Meredith Terretta12. Decolonization, Development, and Identity: The Evolution of the Anticolonial Human Rights Critique, 1948-1978Roland Burke 13. "When You are Weak, You Have to Stick to Principles": Botswana and Anti-Colonialism in Human Rights HistoryJames Christian KirbyC. Socialist and Capitalist Versions of Human Rights14. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Gender of Economic RightsEileen Boris and Jill Jensen 15. Human Rights Movements and the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Explaining the Peaceful Revolution of 1989Ned Richardson-Little16. Human Rights in China: Resisting OrthodoxyPitman B. Potter17. Continuity and Change in U.S. Human Rights PolicySarah B. SnyderPart 4. After Formal Empire and the Cold War: How Human Rights are Practiced Around the Globe (1980s-2001) 18. The Universality of Human Rights: Early NGO Practices in the Arab WorldCatherine Baylin Dureya19. How Women Become Human: Chilean Contributions to Women’s Human Rights from Dictatorship to the 21st CenturyJadwiga E. Pieper Mooney20. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo: From Dictatorship to DemocracyJennifer Adair21. Asma Jahangir: Personifying the Human Rights Debate in PakistanAfiya Shehrbano ZiaPart 5. The Universal Human Rights Pantheon in National Contexts22. Freedom of Religion and the New Diversity: Case Studies from Canada Lori G. Beaman23. Indigenous Activism for Human Rights: A Case Study from AustraliaRachel Standfield and Lynette Russell 24. The International LGBT Rights Movement: An Introductory HistoryLaura A. Belmonte 25. Rights in Isolation: Lessons on Public Health and Human Rights from Leprosy and HIV in the Pacific IslandsAdam R Houston Part 6. New Forms of Accountability in a National Security World (2001 to the Present)26. Decentralization and Public-Private Diplomacy in the Business and Human Rights FieldSteven S. Nam27. The Selectivity of Universal Jurisdiction: The History of Transnational Human Rights Prosecutions in Latin America and SpainUlrike Capdepón28. Militarized Sexual Violence and Campaigns for Redress Vera Mackie29. Solidarity Rights and the Common Heritage of HumanityAnca Claudia Prodan30. Intellectual Property Law and Human RightsSteven Wilf31. Caged at the Border: Immigration Detention and the Denial of Human Rights to Asylum Seekers and Other MigrantsStephanie J. Silverman and Petra MolnarPart 7. The Transformative Impact of Human Rights on Knowledge32. Archiving Human Rights in Latin America: Transitional Justice and Shifting Visions of Political ChangeMichelle Carmody33. Emotion in the History of Human Rights: A Case Study of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights Christine Lavrence34. From the Classroom to the Public: Engaging Students in Human Rights HistoryJessica M. FrazierA Bibliography on the History of Human RightsIndex

Jean H. Quataert is SUNY Distinguished Professor of History Emerita at Binghamton University, USA and co-editor of the Journal of Women’s History (2010–20). She has published many books and articles, including Advocating Dignity: Human Rights Mobilization in Global Politics (2009) and "A New Look at International Law: Gendering the Practices of Humanitarian Medicine in Europe’s ‘Small Wars,’ 1879–1907," Human Rights Quarterly, 2018, vol. 40, no. 3, 547–69. Lora Wildenthal is John Antony Weir Professor of History and Associate Dean of Humanities at Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA. She is the author of German Women for Empire, 1884–1945 (2001) and The Language of Human Rights in West Germany (2013).