The Complexity of Human Rights: From Vernacularization to Quantification

Philip Alston

ISBN 10: 1509972862 / ISBN 13: 9781509972869

Published by Hart Publishing, 2024

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 9781509972869

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Complexity of Human Rights: From Vernacularization to Quantification
• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1509972862
• ISBN 13: 9781509972869
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This book provides the first systematic assessment from a human rights law perspective of the landmark contributions of the renowned legal anthropologist, Sally Engle Merry.

What impact does over-simplification have on human rights debates? The understandable tendency to present them as a single, universal, and immutable concept ignores their complexity and by extension only serves to weaken them.

Merry and her colleagues transformed human rights thinking by highlighting the process of 'vernacularization', which sees rights discourse as being unavoidably dependent upon translation and interpretation. She also warned of the pitfalls of excessive reliance upon statistical and other indicators, through the process of quantification. Here the leading voices in the field assess the significance of these contributions.

About the Author

Philip Alston is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and is co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. Professor Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments including United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.