Human Rights in the United States: Beyond Exceptionalism
Cambridge University Press, 6/16/2011
EAN 9781107008465, ISBN10: 1107008468
Hardcover, 394 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
This book brings to light emerging evidence of a shift toward a fuller engagement with international human rights norms and their application to domestic policy dilemmas in the United States. The volume offers a rich history, spanning close to three centuries, of the marginalization of human rights discourse in the United States. Contributors analyze cases of US human rights advocacy aimed at addressing persistent inequalities within the United States itself, including advocacy on the rights of persons with disabilities; indigenous peoples; lone mother-headed families; incarcerated persons; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people; and those displaced by natural disasters. It also explores key arenas in which legal scholars, policy practitioners and grassroots activists are challenging multiple divides between 'public' and 'private' spheres (for example, in connection with children's rights and domestic violence) and between 'public' and 'private' sectors (specifically, in relation to healthcare and business and human rights).
Foreword
are Americans human? Reflections on the future of progressive politics in the United States Dorothy Q. Thomas
1. Paradoxes and possibilities
domestic human rights policy in context Kathryn Libal and Shareen Hertel
Part I. Structuring Debates, Institutionalizing Rights
2. The yellow sweatshirt
human dignity and economic human rights in advanced industrialized democracies Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
3. The welfare state
a battleground for human rights Mimi Abramovitz
4. Drawing lines in the sand
building economic and social rights in the United States Cathy Albisa
5. State and local commissions as sites for domestic human rights implementation Risa Kaufman
Part II. Challenging Public/Private Divides
6. The curious resistance to seeing domestic violence as a human rights violation in the United States Sally Engle Merry and Jessica Shimmin
7. At the crossroads
children's rights and the US government Jonathan Todres
8. Entrenched inequity
healthcare in the United States Jean Connolly Carmalt, Sarah Zaidi and Alicia Ely Yamin
9. Business and human rights
a new approach to advancing environmental justice in the United States Joanne Bauer
Part III. From the Margins to the Center
Making Harms Visible through Human Rights Framing
10. The law and politics of US participation in the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities Michael Ashley Stein and Janet E. Lord
11. The anomaly of citizenship for indigenous rights Bethany R. Berger
12. Human rights violations as obstacles to escaping poverty
the case of lone mother-headed families Ken Neubeck
13. The human rights of children in conflict with the law
lessons for the US human rights movement Mie Lewis
14. LGBT rights as human rights in the United States
opportunities lost Julie Mertus
15. No shelter
disaster politics in Louisiana and the struggle for human rights Davida Finger and Rachel E. Luft.
"This volume brings together a stellar array of interdisciplinary thinkers and leaders to analyze the past, present and future of human rights frameworks in the United States. The result is a wide-ranging status report that outlines successes as well as failures and points toward next steps for those interested in moving beyond exceptionalism to a nuanced and active engagement with human rights. There is much to learn from these thought-provoking contributions, from the role of human rights in post-Katrina politics to the legal status of human rights in the United States to the significance of human rights frames for marginalized populations. It is rare that a single collection provides so many light-bulb moments!"
- Martha F. Davis
Associate Dean and Professor of Law
Northeastern University School of Law
Co-editor, Bringing Human Rights Home
"The chapters in this volume exhibit a uniformly high quality, and, moreover, span a wide spectrum of human rights....The editors of this volume make and clarify the important link between progressivism and human rights."
-The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare