Normand and 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 moulded human rights law.
"All who care about human rights need to carefully ponder the challenges that the authors present." --from the foreword by Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly, and Thomas G. Weiss
"Expert and rigorous in methodology, engaging in style, pragmatic yet principled and visionary, this indispensable book is accessible to students, activists, scholars, and practitioners. We all need to understand how and why this system came to be the way it is today if we are to re-appropriate its humane vision and re-enact its humanizing power." --Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Emory University School of Law