The Idea of a Human Rights Museum is the first book to examine the formation of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and to situate the museum within the context of the international proliferation of such institutions. Sixteen essays consider the wider political, cultural and architectural contexts within which the museum physically and conceptually evolved drawing comparisons between the CMHR and institutions elsewhere in the world that emphasize human rights and social justice.

A work of memoir, history, and a call to action, the CBC Massey Lectures by internationally renowned UN prosecutor and scholar Payam Akhavan is a powerful and essential work on the major human rights struggles of our times.Renowned UN prosecutor and human rights scholar Payam Akhavan has encountered the grim realities of contemporary genocide throughout his life and career. He argues that deceptive utopias, political cynicism, and public apathy have given rise to m...

Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam. It offers a detailed, moving portrait of the actual experiences of ordinary Muslim women, and of the contingencies with which they live.

This gripping and important book brings alive over two hundred years of humanitarian interventions. Freedom’s Battle illuminates the passionate debates between conscience and imperialism ignited by the first human rights activists in the 19th century, and shows how a newly emergent free press galvanized British, American, and French citizens to action by exposing them to distant atrocities. Wildly romantic and full of bizarre enthusiasms, these activists were pioneers of a new pol...

One of the most remarkable stories of immigration in the last half century is that of Indians to the United States. People of Indian origin make up a little over one percent of the American population now, up from barely half a percent at the turn of the millennium. Not only has its recent growth been extraordinary, but this population from a developing nation with low human capital is now the most-educated and highest-income group in the world's most advanced nation. The Other One Per...

Radovan Karadžić, leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists during the Bosnian War (1992–5), stands accused of genocide and other crimes of war before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. This book traces the origins of the extreme violence of the war to the utopian national aspirations of the Serb Democratic Party and Karadžić's personal transformation from an unremarkable family man to the powerful leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists. Based on pre...

The past two decades have witnessed a convergence between human rights and development, particularly at the level of international political statements and policy commitments. This phenomenon is captured in milestones such as the 2007 OECD DAC Action Oriented Policy Paper on Human Rights and Development (“AOPP”), the 2010 UN World Summit Outcome Document, the commitments of the 2005 and 2011 High-Level For an Aid Effectiveness in Accra and Busan. The connections between rights violations, pov...

Fact-finding is at the heart of human rights advocacy, and is often at the center of international controversies about alleged government abuses. In recent years, human rights fact-finding has greatly proliferated and become more sophisticated and complex, while also being subjected to stronger scrutiny from governments. Nevertheless, despite the prominence of fact-finding, it remains strikingly under-studied and under-theorized. Too little has been done to bring forth the assumptions, met...

This book traverses three pivotal human rights struggles of the post-September 11th era: the American human rights campaign to challenge the Bush administration's 'War on Terror' torture and detention policies, Middle Eastern efforts to challenge American human rights practices (reversing the traditional West to East flow of human rights mobilizations and discourses) and Middle Eastern attempts to challenge their own leaders' human rights violations in light of American interventions. This...

As the fight for same-sex marriage rages across the United States and lesbian and gay couples rush to marriage license counters, the goal of marriage is still fiercely questioned within the LGBT movement. Rarely has an objective so central to a social movement’s political agenda been so controversial within the movement itself. While antigay forces work to restrict marriage to one man and one woman, lesbian and gay activists are passionately arguing about the desirability, viability, and s...

The world is poised for another important transition. The United States is dealing with the impact of the Afghan and Iraq wars, the use of torture and secret detention, Guantanamo, climate change, nuclear proliferation, weakened international institutions, and other issues related directly or indirectly to international law. The world needs an accurate account of the important role of international law and The Power and Purpose of International Law seeks to provide it. Mary Ellen ...

Starting in the mid-1960s, Canadian lesbians started leaving their closets en masse to find each other and build community. After decades of being pathologized or erased from public view, lesbians were ready to make a scene – both by bringing attention to themselves and by creating physical spaces and opportunities where they could meet to form relationships, debate politics, and forge their own culture.Making a Scene documents the lesbian movement that emerged in Canada b...