The virtual human rights library brings together resources from multiple libraries and information services, both internal and external, to create an online hub dedicated to the study of human rights. This curation is unique in its interdisciplinary concerns and focuses on writings and research from social sciences, humanities, and law.
The virtual library is continually updated with the latest academic research in issue areas, as well as with relevant films, recorded conversations, and other forms of media.
Searchable Database
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Gideon Sjoberg, Elizabeth A. Gill, Norma Williams "A Sociology of Human Rights" Social Problems 48, no. 1 (2001): 11-47.
This paper has two main objectives. One is to consider the central place of human rights in today's global order and the other is to articulate a theoretical framework that will make sociological sense out of current human rights discourse...
Robert Meister After Evil: A Politics of Human Rights (Columbia University Press, 2012)
The way in which mainstream human rights discourse speaks of such evils as the Holocaust, slavery, or apartheid puts them solidly in the past. Its elaborate techniques of "transitional" justice encourage future generations to move forward by creating a false...
William D. Irvine Between Justice and Politics: The Ligue Des Droits De L'homme, 1898-1945 (Stanford University Press, 2007)
Between Justice and Politics is a history of the first fifty years of the Ligue des droits de l'Homme—the League of the Rights of Man. This is the first book-length study of the Ligue in any language, and it is...
Jan Eckel, Samuel Moyn The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)
Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the human rights movement achieved unprecedented global prominence. Amnesty International attained striking visibility with its Campaign Against Torture; Soviet dissidents attracted a worldwide audience for their heroism in facing down a totalitarian state; the...
Marina Svensson Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002)
Tracing the concept of human rights in Chinese political discourse since the late Qing dynasty, this comprehensive history convincingly demonstrates that-contrary to conventional wisdom-there has been a vibrant debate on human rights throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on little-known sources...
Susan Marks A False Tree of Liberty: Human Rights in Radical Thought (Oxford University Press, 2020)
This book is concerned with the history of the idea of human rights. It offers a fresh approach that puts aside familiar questions such as 'Where do human rights come from?' and 'When did human rights begin?' for the sake...
Micheline Ishay History of Human Rights : From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (University of California Press, 2008)
Micheline Ishay recounts the dramatic struggle for human rights across the ages in a book that brilliantly synthesizes historical and intellectual developments from the Mesopotamian Codes of Hammurabi to today's era of globalization. As she chronicles the clash of social...
Michael Ignatieff Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton University Press, 2003)
Michael Ignatieff draws on his extensive experience as a writer and commentator on world affairs to present a penetrating account of the successes, failures, and prospects of the human rights revolution. Since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of...
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Has there always been an inalienable "right to have rights" as part of the human condition, as Hannah Arendt famously argued? The contributions to this volume examine how human rights came to define the bounds of universal morality in the...
Joseph Slaughter Human Rights Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (Fordham University Press, 2007)
In this timely study of the historical, ideological, and formal interdependencies of the novel and human rights, Joseph Slaughter demonstrates that the twentieth-century rise of "world literature" and international human rights law are related phenomena.
Slaughter argues that international law...
Please Note:
While the Virtual Library is now live for use, we are still working to update its contents and improve its functionality.
It is usable by all visitors, but the hyperlinks to materials listed are for UChicago community members with a CNet ID and password.
Please direct feedback and suggestions to Kathleen Cavanaugh.
For technical assistance, email pozenhumanrights @ uchicago.edu.