The practice of human rights : tracking law between the global and the local / editors, Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry. electronic resource

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction. Locating rights, envisioning law between the global and the local / Mark Goodale -- pt. I. States of violence. Introduction / Sally Engle Merry ; Human rights as culprit, human rights as victim: rights and security in the states of exception / Daniel Goldstein ; 'Secularism is a human right!': double-binds of Buddhism, democracy, and identity in Nepal / Lauren Leve -- pt. II. Registers of power. Introduction / Laura Nader ; The power of right(s): tracking empires of law and new modes of social resistance in Bolivia (and elsewhere) / Mark Goodale ; Exercising rights and reconfiguring resistance in the the Zapatista Juntas de Buen Gobierno / Shannon Speed -- pt. III. Conditions of vulnerability. Introduction / Sally Engle Merry ; Rights to indigenous culture in Colombia / Jean Jackson ; The 2000 UN Human Trafficking Protocol: rights, enforcement, vulnerabilities / Kay Warren -- pt. IV. Encountering ambivalence. Introduction / Balakrishnan Rajagopal ; Transnational legal conflict between peasants and corporations in Burma: human rights and discursive ambivalence under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act / John G. Dale ; Being Swazi, being human: custom, constitutionalism and human rights in an African monarchy / Sari Wastell ; Conclusion. Tyrannosaurus lex: the anthropology of human rights and transnational law / Richard Ashby Wilson.

Human rights are now the dominant approach to social justice globally. But how do human rights work? What do they do? Drawing on anthropological studies of human rights work from around the world, this book examines human rights in practice. It shows how groups and organizations mobilize human rights language in a variety of local settings, often differently from those imagined by human rights law itself. The case studies reveal the contradictions and ambiguities of human rights approaches to various forms of violence. They show that this openness is not a failure of universal human rights as a coherent legal or ethical framework but an essential element in the development of living and organic ideas of human rights in context. Studying human rights in practice means examining the channels of communication and institutional structures that mediate between global ideas and local situations. Suitable for use on inter-disciplinary courses globally.