Justice in the United States: Human Rights and the Constitution

Justice in the U.S. is a sequel to Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision, and the second in a trilogy on human rights. The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution explicitly clarifies the personal political and civil rights of persons, and by court interpretation, the rights of corporations. Yet in the twentieth century, following World War II, most world leaders reached the conclusion that political and civil rights were not sufficient and they had to be supplemented with additional rights that would protect their citizens and create more robust societies. By the end of the century, most countries had amended their constitutions to include many other rights, notably those pertaining to social security, health care, housing, decent jobs, women, minorities, cultural and language rights, and environmental protections. This amounted to nothing less than a worldwide constitutional revolution, but it has gone largely unnoticed in the United States.

In this volume, the authors compare the constitutional provisions of different nation-states and summarize some of the relevant United Nations' human rights declarations and treaties. To encourage US citizens to think critically about their Constitution in light of the constitutions of other states, the authors present a draft revision of the U.S. Constitution. Of course, revision of the Constitution must be a comprehensively a democratic process, and the authors wish to show how this process might begin.

Judith Blau is professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, and is chair of the interdisciplinary program in Social and Economic Justice. While she has worked in various specialties within sociology, her interests now focus on how to expand sociological queries about human rights, justice, cultural diversity, and equity. She is president of the U.S. Chapter of Sociologists without Borders, and co-editor (with Alberto Moncada) of Without Borders, and former editor of Social Forces.

Alberto Moncada is President of Sociologists without Borders. He has been professor at the University of Madrid, Stanford, and elsewhere, and has been a consultant for UNESCO, the European Council, and the Organization of American States. His many books (in Spanish) cover a great variety of areas: Latinos in the US, media, education, culture and the arts, sexuality, Spanish politics, and religion.