Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics

This volume presents the first global history of human rights politics in the age of decolonization. The conflict between independence movements and colonial powers shaped the global human rights order that emerged after the Second World War. It was also critical to the genesis of contemporary human rights organizations and humanitarian movements. Anti-colonial forces mobilized human rights and other rights language in their campaigns for self-determination. In response, European empires harnessed the new international politics of human rights for their own ends, claiming that their rule, with its promise of 'development,' was the authentic vehicle for realizing them. Ranging from the postwar partitions and the wars of independence to Indigenous rights activism and post-colonial memory, this volume offers new insights into the history and legacies of human rights, self-determination, and empire to the present day.

A. Dirk Moses is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney. He is Senior Editor of the Journal of Genocide Research.

Marco Duranti is Senior Lecturer in Modern European and International History at the University of Sydney. He is the author of The Conservative Human Rights Revolution (2017).

Roland Burke is Senior Lecturer in World History at La Trobe University. He is the author of Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights (2010).