Through the preservation of the social, political, and cultural autonomies of peoples within diverse cultural contexts, Al-Daraweesh and Snauwaert propose a relational epistemology for human rights education.

Through the preservation of the social, political, and cultural autonomies of peoples within diverse cultural contexts, Al-Daraweesh and Snauwaert propose a relational epistemology for human rights education.

International Human Rights is a classic socio-legal study of the incompatibility and possible reconciliation of competing views of culture relativism and absolute fundamental human rights. It features prodigious research and insight that is much cited by academics and human rights lawyers and activists over two decades. Quality ebook edition features active Contents, linked notes, and proper presentation of text and charts. Are human rights universal? Universalists and cultural relativists have long been debating this question. In INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS, Alison Dundes Renteln reconciles the two positions and argues that, within the vast array of cultural practices and values, it is possible to create structural equivalents to rights in all societies. She poses that empirical cross-cultural research can reveal universal human rights standards, then demonstrates it through an analysis of the concept of measured retribution. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS provides an unusual combination of abstract theory and empirical evidence. It will interest scholars and students in political science, sociology, anthropology, peace studies, cross-cultural research, and philosophy, as well as human rights activists.

Is there universalism of human rights? If so, what are its scope and limits? This book is a doctrinal attempt to define universalism of human rights, as well as its scope and limits. The book presents tests of universalism on international, regional and national constitutional levels. It is maintained that universalism of human rights is both a ‘concept’ and a ‘normative reality’. The normative character of human rights is scrutinized through the study of international and regional agreements as well as national constitutions. As a consequence, limitations of normativity are identified, usually on the international level, and take the form of exceptions, reservations, and interpretations. The book is based on the General and National Reports which were originally presented at the 18th International Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law in Washington D.C. 2010.

Bringing together the voices of those deeply engaged in the politics and possibilities of human rights education, Monisha Bajaj's Human Rights Education shapes our understanding of its practices and processes and demonstrates how it has come to be a meaningful field of scholarship, policy, curricular reform, and pedagogy.

This book argues that human rights cannot go global without going local. This important lesson from the winding debates on universalism and particularism raises intricate questions: what are human rights after all, given the dissent surrounding their foundations, content, and scope? What are legitimate deviances from classical human rights (law) and where should we draw “red lines”? Making a case for balancing conceptual openness and distinctness, this book addresses the key human rights issues of our time and opens up novel spaces for deliberation. It engages philosophical reasoning with law, politics, and religion and demonstrates that a meaningful relativist account of human rights is not only possible, but a sorely needed antidote to dogmatism and polarization.

This book adds impetus to the nexus between human rights, human rights education and material reality. The dissonance between these aspects is of growing concern for most human rights educators in various social contexts. The first part of the book opens up new discourses and presents new ontologies and epistemologies from scholars in human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies to critique and/or justify the understandings of human rights’ complex applications. Today’s rapidly changing social contexts and new languages attempting to understand ongoing dehumanization and violations, put enormous pressure on higher education, educators, individuals working in social sciences, policy makers and scholars engaged in curricula making.The second part demonstrates how global interactions between citizens from different countries with diverse understandings of human rights (from developed and developing democracies) question the link between human rights and it’s in(ex)clusive Western philosophies. Continuing inhumane actions around the globe reflect the failure of human rights law and human rights education in schools, higher education and society at large. The book shows that human rights education is no longer a blueprint for understanding human rights and its universal or contextual values presented for multicomplexial societies. The final chapters argue for new ontologies and epistemologies of human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies to open-up difficult conversations and to give space to dissonant and disruptive discourses. The many opportunities for human rights education and literacies lies in these conversations.