Click here for a list of journals on human rights.

For the most recent work on this topic, refer to current publications

The following list of readings is not exhaustive. The list is a small sample of readings to introduce non-specialists to the literature on human rights theory.

Articles

Alves, José A. Lindgren, "The Declaration of Human Rights in Postmodernity," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 22, No. 2, 2000):  478-500.

Afshari, Reza, "On Historiography of Human Rights Reflections on Paul Gordon Lauren’s The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen," Human Rights Quarterly 29, 1 (2007).

Buergentha, Thomas.  “The Normative and Institutional Evolution of International Human Rights.” Human Rights Quarterly 19, 4 (1997): 703-723.

Christman, John. "Liberalism and Positive Freedom," Ethics (Vol. 101, No. 2, 1991):  343-59.

Cmiel, Kenneth, "The Recent History of Human Rights," American Historical Review (Vol. 109, No. 1, 2004).

Cohen, G.A., "On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice," Ethics (Vol. 99, No. 4, 1999):  906-44.

Foweraker, Joe and Landman, Todd, "Individual Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Inquiry," British Journal of Political Science (Vol. 29, No. 2, 1999):  291-322.

Freeman, Neil, "The Philosophical Foundations of Human Rig bsp; 1994):  491-514.

Hirschl, Ron, "‘Negative' Rights vs. ‘Positive' Entitlements: A Comparative Study of Judicial Interpretations of Rights in an Emerging Neo-Liberal Economic Order," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 22, No. 2, 2000):  1060-98.

Ignatieff, Michael . "Human Rights: The Midlife Crisis," New York Review of Books (Vol. 46, No. 9, May 20 1999):  58-62.

Kymlicka, Will. "The Merits of Multiculturalism." In Readings in Canadian History, edited by R.D. Francis. Toronto: Thomson Nelson, 2002.

Landman, Todd, "Measuring Human Rights: Principle, Practice and Policy," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 26, No. 4, 2004):  906-31.

Oestreich, Joel E, "Liberal Theory and Minority Group Rights," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 21, No. 1, 1999):  108-32.

Ramos, Howard, and James Ron. "Shaping the Northern Media’s Human Rights Coverage, 1986–2000." Journal of Peace Research 44, no. 4 (2007).

Ron, James, Howard Ramos, and Kathleen Rodgers. "Transnational Information Politics: NGO Human Rights Reporting, 1986–2000." International Studies Quarterly 49 (2005): 557-87.

Shestack, Jerome, "The Philosophic Foundations of Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 20, No. 2, 1998):  210-34.

Stammers, Neil, "A Critique of Social Approaches to Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 17, No. 3, 1995):  488-508.

Stammers, Neil, "Social Movements and the Social Construction of Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 24, No. 4, 1999):  980-1008.

Wang, Ming. "Human Rights Lawmaking in China: Domestic Politics, International Law, and International Politics." Human Rights Quarterly 29, 3 (2007): 727-53.

Books

Berlin, Isaiah, Four Essays on Liberty (London: Oxford University Press, 1969).

Bickenback, Jerome, Physical Disability and Social Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).

Brysk, Alison. ed., Globalization and Human Rights (Berkeley: University of California press, 2002): 44-58.

Campbell, Tom, ed. Rights: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Cowan, Jane K. and Marie-Bénédicte Dembour and Richard A. Wilson, eds., Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 80-101.

Cranston, Maurice, What is a Human Right? (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

Donnelly, Jack, Universal Human Rights in Theory & Practice (New York: Cornell University Press, 2003).

Dworkin, Ronald, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977).

Freeman, Michael.  Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Cambridge: Polity press, 2002).

Henkin, Louis. The Age of Rights (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).

Ignatieff, Michael, ed., American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

----. Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).

Ishay, Micheline R. The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Ivison, Duncan. Rights. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008.

Kallen, Evelyn, Label Me Human: Minority Rights of Stigmatized Canadians (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989).

Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).

Landman, Todd, Studying Human Rights. London: Routledge, 2006.
———. Measuring Human Rights. London: Routledge, 2009.

Lauren, Paul Gordon. The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

Mutua, Makau. Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002

Ness, Peter Van, Ed. Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays from the United States and Asia. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

Orend, Brian, Human Rights: Concept and Context (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2002).

Shue, Henry. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980

Teeple, Gary, The Riddle of Human Rights (New York: Humanity Books, 2005).

Risse, Thomas and Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink, eds., The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999):

Waldron, Jeremy, Ed. 'Nonesense Upon Stilts': Bentham, Burke and Marx on the Rights of Man. London and New York: Methuen, 1987.