• Lucid analysis of the subject in its socio-political context, chartering the development of human rights, whilst tackling today's debates and dilemmas, providing students with stimulating and thought-provoking commentary
• Diverse range of materials alongside extensive text and editorial commentary, making this the definitive teaching and research tool
• Questions are embedded throughout the text to encourage deeper reflection and critical enquiry
• The authors are the leading figures in the field and provide students with an unmatched level of authority and accuracy

New to this edition

• Terrorism, national security, and human rights: Two parts of the book address this post-9/11 theme. Chapter 3, devoted to civil and political rights, examines the question of torture as broadly understood and resolved within the human rights framework before 9/11, as well as the practices, normative claims and questions that have subsequently arisen. In addition, an entirely new Chapter 5 addresses questions related to detention (including Guantanamo) and fair trial, the effects of national security concerns on economic and social rights, and justifications for emergency-based derogations.
• New tasks and recent and proposed reforms of UN human rights institutions: The book discusses the new Human Rights Council, and its relation to the prior Commission and to special procedures and treaty bodies. It examines the developing role of the Security Council with respect to human rights concerns and the ongoing debate over the possibility of reforming the Council's membership and arrangements for the veto power. The expanding role of the High Commissioner is also considered.
• Human rights law in relation to humanitarian laws of war: The book expands and deepens the discussion in the second edition about customary humanitarian norms, the Geneva Conventions and the Protocols. They are relevant to the ICTs' caselaw, but also to broader themes like terrorism and human rights. Chapter 5 examines the similarities and differences between relevant aspects of human rights law and humanitarian law.
• Non-state actors and human rights: Chapter 16 deals exclusively with this topic, which becomes more important as older boundaries between state (public) and non-state (private) actors and their conduct erode. The theme addresses both human rights law, especially in terms of corporate obligations, and humanitarian law with respect to rebellious and terrorist groups. While examining these topics, it examines "soft law" and the myriad ways in which international human rights law now develops.
• Exceptionalism: The term has become associated with a state's distinguishing itself from most other states with respect to its willingness to participate in, or to be considered otherwise subject to, particular kinds of international human rights or humanitarian law. The United States is broadly discussed as a current example. The theme arises in different parts of the book, particularly with respect to issues of capital punishment and detention-torture.
• Thought about international organizations and their modes of influence on state behavior: The book examines jurisprudential and political characterizations of these organizations, as well as ways other than use of force by which they can influence state conduct.
• The substantial expansion of materials on international criminal law represents in effect a new topic, including for example, the ICC, hybrid tribunals, traditional justice like Gacaca courts, and issues of sovereign and official immunity
• Documentary Annex containing the edited text of all treaties, declarations, constitutions and other official documents to which recourse must frequently be made in relation to the book's materials formerly appeared at the end of the book. In the new edition, it is set forth in a website now being developed, and will be amended as useful during the life of this edition.
• The Documentary Annex containing the edited text of all treaties, declarations, constitutions and other official documents to which recourse must frequently be made in relation to the book's materials has been moved to a new accompanying website to allow for frequent updates

Readership: Students taking courses in international human rights, international law and human rights, as well as international relations.

Henry J. Steiner, Harvard Law School, Harvard University, Philip Alston, New York University Law School, and Ryan Goodman, Harvard Law School, Harvard University

Review(s) from previous edition

"The most stimulating book that I know of in the field of human rights - Georges Abi-Saab, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva

"... a most remarkable feat... to winnow, edit, and organize so much material within an overarching but not intrusive framework is, I would have thought, the work of many a scholarly lifetime" - Upendra Baxi, University of Warwick; formerly Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi

"... imaginative and stimulating materials with thought-provoking commentary... a wonderful teaching tool, as well as a valuable starting point for research." - Hilary Charlesworth, Australian National University

"Exposes the sharp contradictions and dilemmas in the human rights movement, without concessions to political correctness or rushing to answers... today's debates are openly tackled... the book will long remain the yardstick by which others must be judged." - Makau wa Mutua, State University of New York at Buffalo

"... an indispensable tool for training the next generation of human rights practitioners, advocates and scholars." - Theodor Meron, New York University School of Law

"... covers international law in force today, while providing the best insights into the politics and ideologies underlying legal discourse... ignited great classroom discussions." - Bruno Simma, University of Munich and University of Michigan

PART A INTRODUCTORY NOTIONS AND BACKGROUND TO INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT
1: Human rights concepts and discourse
2: Background to and Postwar Creation of the Human Rights Movement
PART B NORMATIVE FOUNDATION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
3: Civil and political rights
4: Economic and social rights
5: National security, terrorism, and derogations of human rights
PART C RIGHTS, DUTIES AND UNIVERSALISM
6: Rights or duties as primary organizing concepts
7: Conflicts in culture, tradition and practices
PART D INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS
8: International institutions and challenges to notions of sovereignty
9: The UN human rights system
10: Treaty organs: the ICCPR human rights committee
11: Regional arrangements
PART E STATES AS PROTECTORS AND ENFORCERS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
12: Vertical interpretation: human rights treaties within states' legal and political orders
13: Horizontal interpretation: transnational influence and enforcement of human rights
PART F CURRENT TOPICS
14: Massive human rights tragedies: prosecutions and truth commissions
15: Autonomy regimes
16: Non-state actors and human rights
17: Human rights and development, finance and trade