The Practice of Human Rights
Tracking Law between the Global and the Local

Using ethnographic case studies, this is aimed at courses globally in social sciences and law.

Mark Goodale (Edited by), Sally Engle Merry (Edited by)

9780521683784, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 July 2007

398 pages
23 x 15.3 x 2.5 cm, 0.648 kg

'In the present publication, the short introductions at the beginning of each section provide focus by summarizing how anthropologists have previously worked with the addressed themes. Simultaneously they also provide orientation for future research by demarking research gaps and pointing out theoretical inconsistencies.' Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society

Human rights are now the dominant approach to social justice globally. But how do human rights work? What do they do? Drawing on anthropological studies of human rights work from around the world, this book examines human rights in practice. It shows how groups and organizations mobilize human rights language in a variety of local settings, often differently from those imagined by human rights law itself. The case studies reveal the contradictions and ambiguities of human rights approaches to various forms of violence. They show that this openness is not a failure of universal human rights as a coherent legal or ethical framework but an essential element in the development of living and organic ideas of human rights in context. Studying human rights in practice means examining the channels of communication and institutional structures that mediate between global ideas and local situations. Suitable for use on inter-disciplinary courses globally.

Introduction - locating rights, envisioning law between the global and the local Mark Goodale
Part I. States of Violence: 1. Introduction Sally Engle Merry
2. The violence of rights - human rights as culprit, human rights as victim Daniel Goldstein
3. Double-binds of self and secularism in Nepal - religion, democracy, identity and rights Lauren Leve
Part II. Registers of Power: 4. Introduction Laura Nader
5. The power of right(s) - tracking empires of law and new modes of social resistance in Bolivia (and elsewhere) Mark Goodale
6. Exercising rights and reconfiguring resistance in the the Zapatista Shannon Speed
Part III. Conditions of Vulnerability: 7. Introduction Sally Engle Merry
8. Rights to indigenous culture in Colombia Jean Jackson
9. The 2000 UN Human Trafficking Protocol - rights, enforcement, vulnerabilities Kay Warren
Part IV. Encountering Ambivalence: 10. Introduction Balakrishnan Rajagopal
11. Transnational legal conflict between peasants and corporations in Burma - human rights and discursive ambivalence under the US Alien Tort Claims Act John Dale
12. Being Swazi, Being Human - custom, constitutionalism and human rights in an African monarchy Sari Wastell
13. Conclusion - Tyrannosaurus Lex - The Anthropology of human rights and transnational law Richard Ashby Wilson.

Subject Areas: International human rights law [LBBR], International relations [JPS], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]