This unique and challenging volume is the result of a major international rights conference entitled Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century: A Global Challengeconvened in Banff, Alberta, Canada in November 1990. The conference was supported and organized under the auspices of the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, The European Court of Human Rights, the European Human Rights Commission, the Strasbourg Institute of Comparative Human Rights Law, the Alberta Law Foundation and the International Centre at the University of Calgary. Its main objectives were legal education and legal research, which were met by a total of 92 speakers representing 24 different nationalities presenting their views on 24 human rights topics. Women and participants from developing countries in particular, brought a new vision of human rights to topics as varied as reproductive technology, state violence, and biotechnology. The theme of this book is thus the interdependence of legal, social, economic and environmental problems which transcend national and international boundaries and the spirit of solidarity which is required to resolve them. Written by a team of international and renowned human experts, it will provide a substantial contribution to the legal literature on international human rights.

How might three of the largest challenges of the 21st century - armed conflict, environment, and poverty - be addressed using a human rights framework? This book engages with this question through contributions from prominent figures in the debate as it considers both foundational issues of theory as well as applied questions.

The Global Citizenship Commission was convened, under the leadership of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the auspices of NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study, to re-examine the spirit and stirring words of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The result – this volume – offers a 21st-century commentary on the original document, furthering the work of human rights and illuminating the ideal of global citizenship. What does it mean for each of us to be members of a global community? Since 1948, the Declaration has stood as a beacon and a standard for a better world. Yet the work of making its ideals real is far from over. Hideous and systemic human rights abuses continue to be perpetrated at an alarming rate around the world. Too many people, particularly those in power, are hostile to human rights or indifferent to their claims. Meanwhile, our global interdependence deepens. Bringing together world leaders and thinkers in the fields of politics, ethics, and philosophy, the Commission set out to develop a common understanding of the meaning of global citizenship – one that arises from basic human rights and empowers every individual in the world. This landmark report affirms the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and seeks to renew the 1948 enterprise, and the very ideal of the human family, for our day and generation.

More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? If women were regarded as human, would they be sold into sexual slavery worldwide; veiled, silenced, and imprisoned in homes; bred, and worked as menials for little or no pay; stoned for sex outside marriage or burned within it; mutilated genitally, impoverished economically, and mired in illiteracy--all as a matter of course and without effective recourse? The cutting edge is where law and culture hurts, which is where MacKinnon operates in these essays on the transnational status and treatment of women. Taking her gendered critique of the state to the international plane, ranging widely intellectually and concretely, she exposes the consequences and significance of the systematic maltreatment of women and its systemic condonation. And she points toward fresh ways--social, legal, and political--of targeting its toxic orthodoxies. MacKinnon takes us inside the workings of nation-states, where the oppression of women defines community life and distributes power in society and government. She takes us to Bosnia-Herzogovina for a harrowing look at how the wholesale rape and murder of women and girls there was an act of genocide, not a side effect of war. She takes us into the heart of the international law of conflict to ask--and reveal--why the international community can rally against terrorists' violence, but not against violence against women. A critique of the transnational status quo that also envisions the transforming possibilities of human rights, this bracing book makes us look as never before at an ongoing war too long undeclared.

How do we write about the history of a place, a person, an event or an idea in its context in the world? How do we do history in the current age of globalization? In this book historians engage in new dialogues outside their former specialisms to face new challenges of comparative and connective histories.

This book is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development. It contains a collection of analytical studies of various aspects of the right to development, which include the rule of law and good governance, aid, trade, debt, technology transfer, intellectual property, access to medicines and climate change in the context of an enabling environment at the local, regional and international levels. It also explores the issues of poverty, women and indigenous peoples within the theme of social justice and equity. The book considers the strides that have been made over the years in measuring progress in implementing the right to development and possible ways forward to make the right to development a reality for all in an increasingly fragile, interdependent and ever-changing world.

Identifies the major weaknesses in the current United Nations system and proposes fundamental reforms to address each. This title is also available as Open Access.