Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction

• The human rights movement is gaining increasing attention internationally. This book explains the scope of human rights today, and how they are used in both national and international law.
• Completely up-to-date. Human rights is a topical and controversial issue, and recent national and world events mean that they have been regularly invoked and analysed.
• Looks at the past, present, and future of human rights. Questions whether they are under threat as they come to be seen by some as obstacles to peace, development and security.
• Ties in law, philosophy, and politics, to reveal the role played by human rights in the contemporary world.
• Andrew Clapham was for six years the Representative of Amnesty International at the United Nations in New York.

Readership: Students of law, moral and ethical philosophy, history and politics. Also activists in civil society movements and anyone seeking an accessible introduction to human rights and their relevance to current events.

Andrew Clapham, Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and Professor of Public International Law, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva

Preface
1: Looking at rights
2: The historical development of international human rights
3: Human rights foreign policy and the role of the UN
4: The international crime of torture
5: Legitimate restrictions and questions of freedom
6: Balancing rights - the issue of privacy
7: Food, education, health, housing and work
8: Discrimination and equality
9: The death penalty
Final remarks
References
Further reading
Annex: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights