The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights Law

Human rights are considered one of the big ideas of the early twenty-first century. This book presents in an authoritative and readable form the variety of platforms on which human rights law is practiced today, reflecting also on the dynamic inter-relationships that exist between these various levels. The collection has a critical edge. The chapters engage with how human rights law has developed in its various subfields, what (if anything) has been achieved and at what cost, in terms of expected or produced unexpected side-effects. The authors pass judgment about the consistency, efficacy and success of human rights law (set against the standards of the field itself or other external goals) . Written by world-class academics, this Companion will be essential reading for students and scholars of human rights law.

Conor Gearty is Professor of Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a specialist in European and UK human rights law, as well as in terrorism law and civil liberties, on each of which subjects he has written extensively. He is also a barrister and a founding member of Matrix chambers from where he continues to practice.

Costas Douzinas is Professor of Law at Birkbeck, University of London and Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. In his many books and the talks he has given around the world, he has developed a position on human rights which seeks to retain the radical and emancipatory power of the term without however accepting the arid and self-interested arguments of the powerful (of both the scholarly and political variety).