Sociology and Human Rights

Judith Blau is professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and served for ten years as chair of the Social and Economic Justice Undergraduate Minor. Her field is Human Rights, which is a normative approach to human societies, collective goods, political institutions, economy, and democracy. Drawing from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international human rights treaties and conventions, Human Rights axiomatically asserts the inalienable and equal rights of all humans. One challenge everywhere is to ensure equal rights to those who are denied them owing to, for example, poverty or disability. Another challenge is to combat discrimination (racism, sexism, homophobia) that stands in the way of people achieving equality. Another is to ensure diversity of culture and of cultural expressions.

Judith Blau is the director of the Human Rights Center of Chapel Hill & Carrboro. She is also the president of the US chapter of Sociologists without Borders (SSF), which is affiliated with Sociologists without Borders International/ Sociologos sin Fronteras. Blau was the co-editor of the journal, Societies without Borders: Human Rights & the Social Sciences and serves on the Science & Human Rights Coalition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is one of the co-founders of the SSF Think-Tank, a state-of-the-art space for democratic, global discussions and debate. Blau has co-authored four books on human rights. Besides writing for an academic audience, she also writes for the Huffington Post, Counter Punch and Commondreams.

Mark Frezzo is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Mississippi. His current research involves the world-historical analysis of the origins, evolution, and influence of the "human rights community." Frezzo has published book chapters in Overcoming the "Two Cultures": Science vs. the Humanities in the Modern World-System (Paradigm 2004), The World and US Social Forums: A Better World Is Possible and Necessary (Brill 2008), and The Leading Rogue State: The United States and Human Rights (Paradigm 2008) and articles in Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, Societies Without Borders: Human Rights and the Social Sciences, and Sociology Compass. His book, Deflecting the Crisis: Keynesianism, Social Movements, and US Hegemony (Lambert 2009) analyzes the role of the Keynesianism and developmentalism in securing US power. Before moving to the University of Mississippi, Frezzo served as Assistant Professor of Sociology and Assistant Director of Peace Studies at Florida Atlantic University. He holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Colorado College, an MA in Philosophy from the University of Paris 8, and an MA and PhD in Sociology from Binghamton University.

Frezzo serves as Secretary/Treasurer of the Human Rights Section of the American Sociological Association. He is co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Societies Without Borders: Human Rights and the Social Sciences and Vice President of Public Relations for the scholarly NGO Sociologists Without Borders.