Human Rights: The Hard Questions
Springer (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 1. September 2012
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-90-481-8986-1 (ISBN)
Description
The volume will be an edited, multidisciplinary collection of new essays focused on ten or so of the most contested questions within contemporary human rights theory and practice. By contemporary human rights theory and practice the editors are referring to something wider than universal legal rights within established international law and something narrower than universal moral rights within an ideal moral theory. They are referring to human rights as the universal moral rights properly taken up as legal rights within international law, whether by voluntary undertaking or as a matter of jus cogens. The questions addressed by the volume concern human rights in this sense.
Thus, this is not a volume addressed solely to narrowly legal questions regarding the status of particular human rights claims under existing international law. Nor is it a volume addressed solely to broadly moral questions regarding particular human rights claims one might justifiably assert only as moral claims supported by an ideal moral theory and with no aspiration toward institutional or legal embodiment within international law as we know it today. Instead, it is a volume devoted to the most contested questions of legal and political morality raised by the normative evaluation of existing international human rights law and various (not unrealistic) prescriptive recommendations for its reform.
Each contested question will be addressed by two or three essays. These will be written from different disciplinary perspectives and will defend different substantive conclusions. In this way, readers will be forced to examine each contested question from at least two and often three very different points of view. The disciplinary perspectives represented will include philosophy, international law, political science, religious studies, women's studies, and anthropology, among others. We anticipate a total of approximately 25 substantive essays. As editors, we will provide a substantive introduction to the volume. We expect essays of roughly 7,000 words. Thus, we are proposing a volume of roughly 180,000 words. This, we think, is a length well-suited to, inter alia, class room use.
The work will not focus on fixed or consensus views regarding human rights theory and practice today within any one discipline or across any set of disciplines. There are already volumes available or planned that report and explain fixed or consensus views. Nor will the work be focused solely on any one contested question (e.g., what are the moral and philosophical foundations of established human rights within international law?), or focused on any one discipline's approach to one or more contested questions (e.g., philosophers on whether there is, or ought to be, a human right to liberal democratic government? Or on whether human rights require a world state? And so on.) Again there are already volumes of this sort available or planned. Instead, what the work will examine from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives is several of the most contested questions today in human rights theory and practice.
Thus, this is not a volume addressed solely to narrowly legal questions regarding the status of particular human rights claims under existing international law. Nor is it a volume addressed solely to broadly moral questions regarding particular human rights claims one might justifiably assert only as moral claims supported by an ideal moral theory and with no aspiration toward institutional or legal embodiment within international law as we know it today. Instead, it is a volume devoted to the most contested questions of legal and political morality raised by the normative evaluation of existing international human rights law and various (not unrealistic) prescriptive recommendations for its reform.
Each contested question will be addressed by two or three essays. These will be written from different disciplinary perspectives and will defend different substantive conclusions. In this way, readers will be forced to examine each contested question from at least two and often three very different points of view. The disciplinary perspectives represented will include philosophy, international law, political science, religious studies, women's studies, and anthropology, among others. We anticipate a total of approximately 25 substantive essays. As editors, we will provide a substantive introduction to the volume. We expect essays of roughly 7,000 words. Thus, we are proposing a volume of roughly 180,000 words. This, we think, is a length well-suited to, inter alia, class room use.
The work will not focus on fixed or consensus views regarding human rights theory and practice today within any one discipline or across any set of disciplines. There are already volumes available or planned that report and explain fixed or consensus views. Nor will the work be focused solely on any one contested question (e.g., what are the moral and philosophical foundations of established human rights within international law?), or focused on any one discipline's approach to one or more contested questions (e.g., philosophers on whether there is, or ought to be, a human right to liberal democratic government? Or on whether human rights require a world state? And so on.) Again there are already volumes of this sort available or planned. Instead, what the work will examine from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives is several of the most contested questions today in human rights theory and practice.
More details
Language
English
Target group
Research
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
ISBN-13
978-90-481-8986-1 (9789048189861)
Schweitzer Classification
Content
1. Are human rights really universal moral rights?; Rex Martin, Neil Walker et al.- 2. Is there a human right to democracy?; James Bohman, Joshua Cohen et al.- 3. Are there human rights that are group rights?; Peter Jones, S. James Anaya et al..- 4. Human rights and the family.- 5. Human rights and the family.; Peter Danchin, Ayalet Shachar et al.- 6. Human rights and the global economy.; Thomas Pogge,David Lynch et al.- 7. Human rights and the environment.; Stephen Gardiner, Simon Caney et al.- 8. Human rights and cultural difference.; Alison Renteln, Simon Caney et al.- 9. Are there too many human rights?; James Griffin, Gillian Brock et al.- 10. Force and compliance.; Brian Orend, Louise Arbour et al.- 11. Are human rights a force for good?; Anne Bayefsky, Adibeli Nduka-Agwu et al.