Understanding Human Rights

Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book provides a concise, hands-on roadmap for learning about human rights within a social work context. By illustrating the importance of human rights to the social work profession with understandable explanations and exercises, author Elisabeth Reichert highlights why social workers need to embrace the concept of human rights.

This book offers the first scholarly analysis of the United Nations' work in the field of human rights education (HRE) and examines why HRE is so important. Paula Gerber argues that international law can learn from the medical profession, which has long recognised that 'prevention is better than cure'. There is an urgent need for HRE to be recognised as one of the best ways of preventing future human rights abuses; it is, in essence, a prophylactic for human rights violations. The book explores the provenance of human rights education in international law before critiquing the UNs work in this area across numerous different organs, including treaty committees, the Human Rights Council, General Assembly and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The author identifies a number of deficiencies in the UNs HRE activities, and makes recommendations for how the UN can more effectively promote HRE and increase states compliance with their international HRE obligations. This book provides a unique and timely insight into the workings of the UN in this vital aspect of international human rights law. Understanding Human Rights will strongly appeal to UN Bureaucrats, civil servants, human rights academics, human rights institutions and NGOs.

Originally published in 2004. This excellent volume presents a systematic analysis of various human rights violations around the globe, focusing on security and subsistence rights. The book collects important contributions to the theoretical development of the human rights phenomenon, covering a wide range of human rights issues and research approaches. The research presented combines a variety of qualitative and quantitative approaches and brings together both theoretical and empirical work. It places particular emphasis on making the advanced statistical methods that are used to test the arguments accessible to a wider readership. Understanding Human Rights Violations will prove a useful tool for all in the fields of international human rights, peace studies, political violence and international law, and offers a valuable introduction into the literature on human rights violations.

Understanding Human Rights: Origins, Currents and Critiques is a comprehensive text on human rights with a Canadian perspective. Although the principles underlying human rights have been generally acknowledged and accepted by the vast majority, debate about the universality of such rights can provoke strong reactions among people of different cultural backgrounds. The objective of Understanding Human Rights: Origins, Currents and Critiques is to introduce the students to the historical origins of the concept of human rights: the international regime and the acceptance of several generation of rights such as civil and political rights, economic rights, group rights and women's rights: the critiques of universalism, the problems of implementation of human rights and Canada's record on human rights.

Human rights are brought to life by a number of defining principles. This text explores each of those principles in depth through comprehensive,informative and provocative papers written by prominent and distinguished practitioners and legal academics. These papers were first delivered at a series of seminars organised by JUSTICE and University College London. Contents: Foreword by the Hon. Mr Justice Richards Introduction by Jeffrey Jowell QC and Jonathan Cooper The concept of a lawful interference with fundamental rights - Helen Mountfield Identifying the principles of proportionality - Michael Fordham and Thomas de la Mare Dertermining civil rights and obligations - Javan Herberg, Andrew le Sueur and Jane Mulcahy Positive obligations under the Convention - Keir Starmer The horizontal effect of the Human Rights Act: moving beyond the public-private distinction - Murray Hunt The place of the Human Rights Act in a democratic society - Rabinder Singh Part of the Justice Series.

This third edition of Understanding Human Rights has been elaborated by the European Training and Research Center for Human Rights and Democracy (ETC) in Graz, originally for the Human Security Network (HSN) at the initiative of the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The objective is to assist human rights education efforts worldwide. The book's thematic modules on selected human rights issues cover topics such as: the prohibition of torture, freedom from poverty, human rights of women and children, human rights in armed conflict, freedom of expression, and democracy. New to this updated edition are chapters reflecting current trends in human rights, including new modules on privacy (such as challenges posed by Internet use), minority rights, and the right to asylum. Translations of the earlier editions already exist in 15 languages, among them all the official United Nations languages. Understanding Human Rights has become a basic text for human rights education and training in different countries, on different levels, and for different audiences, from university lectures in China to NGO training in Mali to police training in Kosovo.

This excellent volume presents a systematic analysis of various human rights violations around the globe, focusing on security and subsistence rights. The book collects important contributions to the theoretical development of the human rights phenomenon, covering a wide range of human rights issues and research approaches. The research presented combines a variety of qualitative and quantitative approaches and brings together both theoretical and empirical work. It places particular emphasis on making the advanced statistical methods that are used to test the arguments accessible to a wider readership.Understanding Human Rights Violations will prove a useful tool for all in the fields of international human rights, peace studies, political violence and international law, and offers a valuable introduction into the literature on human rights violations.