Derechos: Human Rights Listings

by Filip Spagnoli, Algora Publishing (March 22, 2007)

Book Description:

Here in a nutshell readers may find a description of the most important characteristics of human rights, and a clear and concise discussion of the problem of making human rights real and not just hypothetical. Building on definitions of human rights used by the United Nations and other international bodies, the author describes the main characteristics of the system of human rights (universality, interdependence, differences between types of rights, absolute or limited rights, the subjects of rights - individuals or groups, the link between rights and the judicial system and between rights and democracy). He then discusses some of the instruments we can use to promote respect for human rights, the means by which we might make these rights real for a greater portion of humanity. Along the way, he analyzes some of the related controversies regarding sovereignty, international intervention, and globalization and questions of cultural imperialism as they bear upon human rights. Do we have a right to impose rights - or to defend ourselves from such intervention? This systematic discussion presents a complex and difficult topic in an understandable framework accessible to the general public, and will stand as a useful foundation for readings of more specialized scientific, legal and philosophical works. Where most human rights books for the nonspecialist focus on specific instances of rights abuses, this work provides a more general approach focused on the logic in the system of human rights.