Subjects:

Human Rights and Civil Liberties

Contents:

Introduction - locating rights, envisioning law between the global and the local Mark Goodale

Part I. States of Violence:
1. Introduction Sally Engle Merry

2. The violence of rights - human rights as culprit, human rights as victim Daniel Goldstein

3. Double-binds of self and secularism in Nepal - religion, democracy, identity and rights Lauren Leve

Part II. Registers of Power:
4. Introduction Laura Nader

5. The power of right(s) - tracking empires of law and new modes of social resistance in Bolivia (and elsewhere) Mark Goodale

6. Exercising rights and reconfiguring resistance in the the Zapatista Shannon Speed

Part III. Conditions of Vulnerability:
7. Introduction Sally Engle Merry

8. Rights to indigenous culture in Colombia Jean Jackson

9. The 2000 UN Human Trafficking Protocol - rights, enforcement, vulnerabilities Kay Warren

Part IV. Encountering Ambivalence:
10. Introduction Balakrishnan Rajagopal

11. Transnational legal conflict between peasants and corporations in Burma - human rights and discursive ambivalence under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act John Dale

12. Being Swazi, Being Human - custom, constitutionalism and human rights in an African monarchy Sari Wastell

13. Conclusion - Tyrannosaurus Lex - The Anthropology of human rights and transnational law Richard Ashby Wilson.

Human rights are now the dominant approach to social justice globally. But how do human rights work? What do they do? Drawing on anthropological studies of human rights work from around the world, this book examines human rights in practice. It shows how groups and organizations mobilize human rights language in a variety of local settings, often differently from those imagined by human rights law itself.

The case studies reveal the contradictions and ambiguities of human rights approaches to various forms of violence. They show that this openness is not a failure of universal human rights as a coherent legal or ethical framework but an essential element in the development of living and organic ideas of human rights in context. Studying human rights in practice means examining the channels of communication and institutional structures that mediate between global ideas and local situations. Suitable for use on inter-disciplinary courses globally.

• Breaks new ground by approaching the study of human rights through a series of problems that require an interdisciplinary approach
• The volume’s four sections (violence, power, vulnerability, and ambiguity) are divided thematically without regard to traditional categories within human rights studies
• Gives readers with different disciplinary backgrounds and interests the ability to see the issues under consideration from a range of angles