Conceptualizing access to government information as a human right is a new development in the global trend promoting institutional transparency. Bishop provides a comprehensive examination of international human rights law and explains four conceptualizations of access to information as a human right. Rights to information have been linked to the right to free expression, the right to privacy, and the right to a healthy environment, and the right to the truth about human rights abuses. She concludes that a human right to access information is evolving in disparate ways. The current evolution of access rights creates a patchwork system of guarantees; nonetheless, the freedom-of-expression conceptualization holds the most promise for proving a broad right of access.

Mainstream human rights discourse speaks of such evils as the Holocaust, slavery, or apartheid in ways that put them solidly in the past. Its elaborate techniques of "transitional" justice encourage future generations to move forward, but the false assumption of closure enables those who are guilty to elude responsibility.

Human Rights and Labor Solidarity analyzes trade unions' campaigns to link local labor rights disputes to international human rights frameworks, thereby creating external scrutiny of governments. As a result of these campaigns, states engage in what political scientist Susan L. Kang terms a normative negotiation process, in which governments, trade unions, and international organizations construct and challenge a broader understanding of international labor rights norms to determine whether the conditions underlying these disputes constitute human rights violations.

.Volume 6 on "Human Rights and Media" introduces and analyzes the significant relationship and discourse of human rights and media. As agenda setters, framers and integral actors in human rights movements, various forms of media are analyzed by the contributing authors. News media, the press, television, cinema, photojournalism, the internet and other documentary forms are among the media investigated by the authors.

Recognizing the growing importance of awareness of international social issues for social workers, this thoroughly revised edition provides an updated introduction to a variety of these issues in the Global South, including AIDS, forced labor and war and conflict. A new issue in this edition is examining how the changing physical environment impacts social work practice around the world. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as other UN human rights documents, is used as a framework to examine examples of social injustice and human rights violations.

What are our human rights? What are their philosophical justifications and historical origins? Focusing on highly topical issues such as torture, arbitrary detention, privacy, and discrimination, this Very Short Introduction will help readers to understand for themselves the controversies and complexities behind this vitally relevant issue. - ;Today it is usually not long before a problem gets expressed as a human rights issue. An appeal to human rights in the face of injustice can be a heartfelt and morally justified demand for some, while for others it remains merely an empty slogan. Taking an international perspective and focusing on highly topical issues such as torture, arbitrary detention, privacy, health and discrimination, this Very Short Introduction will help readers to understand for themselves the controversies and complexities behind this vitally relevant issue.

This book champions social movements as one of the most influential agents that shape our conceptions of human rights. Stammers argues that human rights cannot be properly understood outside of the context of social movement struggles. He explains how much of the literature on human rights has systematically obscured this link, consequently distorting our understandings of human rights.

xploring the contemporary international human rights regime, this volume assesses the factors predominantly responsible for human rights violations in transitions societies, long-term consequences of such violations and political remedies.

This study of human rights argues for a greater openness in the ways we approach human rights and international rights promotion. Starting with the realities of abuse rather than the liberal architectures of rights, it casts human rights as a language for probing the political dimensions of suffering, and shows Western rights models as substantial but problematic. Brown shows that rather than a message from "us" to "them", rights promotion is a long and difficult conversation about the relationship between political organisation and suffering. Three case studies are explored - the Tiananmen Square massacre, East Timor and the circumstances of indigenous Australians.

Reaffirming the Universal Declaration's recognition of the human rights of the unborn child, this book explores the implications of this recognition for modern international human rights law, establishing a case for restoring legal protection for children at risk of abortion.

Human rights activists Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi provide a broad political history of the emergence and development of the human rights movement in the 20th century through the crucible of the United Nations, focusing on the hopes and expectations, concrete power struggles, national rivalries, and bureaucratic politics that molded the international system of human rights law.

Today the language of human rights, if not human rights themselves, is nearly universal. Human Rights brings together essays that attend to both the allure and criticism of human rights. They examine contestation and contingency in today's human rights politics and help us rethink some of the basic concepts of human rights. Questions addressed in Human Rights include: Can national self-determination be reconciled with human rights? Can human rights be advanced without thwarting efforts to develop indigenous legal traditions? How are the forces of modernization associated with globalization transforming our understanding of human dignity and personal autonomy? What does it mean to talk about culture and cultural choice? Is the protection of culture and cultural choice an important value in human rights discourse? How do human rights figure in local political contests and how are those contests, in turn, shaped by the spread of capitalism and market values? What contingencies shape the implementation of human rights in societies without a strong tradition of adherence to the rule of law? What are the conditions under which human rights claims are advanced and under which nations respond to their appeal?