International Human Rights in Context: Texts and Materials

International Human Rights in Context presents diverse materials consisting of extensive authors' text and questions; sharply edited primary materials ranging from intergovernmental or NGO reports to treaties, resolutions and decisions; and excerpts from secondary readings in law and legal theory, as well as other pertinent fields such as international relations, moral and political theory, and anthropology. The book introduces students to those organizing concepts and topics of public international law that are vital to understanding human rights issues. It stresses throughout the relationships among human rights norms, processes and institutions, as well as relationships between international and internal orders. The topics include civil and political rights, economic and social rights, intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions, universal and regional regimes, human rights and foreign policy, democratization, women's rights, self determination and autonomy regimes, individual criminal responsibility, and development. The book's broad themes include universalism and cultural relativism, rights or duties as organizing conceptions, the relevance of the private-public distinction, and transformed conceptions of statehood and sovereignty.

Henry Steiner is Jeremiah Smith Jnr Professor of Law and Director of the Law School Human Rights Program, Harvard University.

Philip Alston is Professor of International Law at the European University Institute, Florence