Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Cosmopolitan Challenges

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At a time when states are increasingly hostile to the international rights regime, human rights activists have turned to non-state and sub-state actors to begin the implementation of human rights law. This complicates the conventional analysis of relationships between local actors, global norms, and cosmopolitanism. The contributions in this open access collection examine the lived realities of human rights and critically engage with debates on gender, sexuality, localism and cosmopolitanism, weaving insights from multiple disciplines into a broader call for interdisciplinary scholarship informed by practice. Overall, the contributors argue that the power of human rights depends on their ability to be continuously broadened and re-imagined in locales around the world. It is only on this basis that human rights can remain relevant and be effectively used to push local, national and international institutions to put in place structural reforms that advance equity and pluralism in these perilous times. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Reviews

This book offers a rich repertoire of theoretical and pragmatic tools to address mounting economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental challenges and crises. It makes a compelling call for the need of innovation, experimentation, cross-sectoral collaboration, and multidisciplinary approaches. A must-read for anyone in civil society, academia, or subnational, regional, and national governments grappling with the need for new solutions and analytical frames. Besides constituting a practical toolkit, the case studies and snapshots from across the globe are also a timely and compelling case for the potential utility of human rights on the ground at a moment in which their relevance and impact are questioned. * Claudia Lpez Hernndez, Mayor of Bogot *
This volume assembles a diverse array of experience and expertise that compels a re-imagination of human rights to help analysts and practitioners escape conventional boundaries imposed by powerful groups working to divide communities and otherwise preserve the status quo. By questioning state-centrism and the issue silos that compartmentalize policy processes and social movements, contributors address the structural foundations of human rights and point to productive and novel solutions. A range of timely cases shows how human rights advocates are engaging in innovative and replicable strategies to build power, using the largely untapped normative and institutional resources of human rights to respond to deep-seated problems like structural racism, COVID-19, climate change, and austerity. * Jackie Smith, Professor of Sociology University of Pittsburgh, USA, and Co-ordinator of the U.S. Human Rights City Alliance *
This volume aims high in terms of both substance and structure. And it achieves. The through-lines of intersections and transformations link chapters grouped around the themes of cosmopolitanism, the city, sexual rights, and feminism. The deft introductions by the editors bring these chapters into illuminating conversation. Short snapshots throughout the volume ground the theoretical discussions in the empirical realities out in the world. At a time when human rights are under stress from a rise in global authoritarianism and rejection of the rule of law, these chapters underscore human rights dynamism and resilience. The result is stimulating, essential reading for those interested in navigating the current challenges to human rights theory and practice. * Martha F. Davis, University Distinguished Professor of Law, Northeastern University *
Most studies of human rights have been concerned with the vernacularization of the global that is, with the making of the lingua franca of international human rights and its contested adoption at the local scale. We need to be equally concerned with the globalization of the vernacular that is, with the legal and political processes whereby local actors, including subaltern groups, introduce modifications and neologisms into the vocabulary and even the grammar of human rights. This volume gives us precisely this type of well-rounded and complex account of human rights. Rather than remaining in the comfort of partial views of the movement, it embraces the messiness of the practice of rights and the possibilities of this transitional moment. And it rekindles our imagination at a time when we need it most. * Csar Rodrguez-Garavito, Professor of Clinical Law, Faculty Director and Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law, USA *

Author Bio

Anthony Tirado Chase is a professor at Occidental College, USA, and Chair of its Young Initiative on the Global Political Economy. Pardis Mahdavi is Provost and Executive Vice President of the University of Montana, USA. Hussein "Huss" Banai is an associate professor of International Studies in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Sofia Gruskin is a professor in the Keck School of Medicine and Gould School of Law, and Director USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health, University of Southern California, USA.