1 online resource (xiii, 355 pages) :

In Advocating Dignity, Jean H. Quataert explores the emergence, development, and impact of the human rights revolution following World War II. Intertwining popular local and national mobilizations for rights with ongoing developments of a formal international system of rights monitoring in the United Nations, Quataert argues that human rights advocacy networks have been a vital dimension of international political developments since 1945. Recalling the popular slogan "Think globally, act locally," she contends that postwar human rights have been shaped by the efforts of people at the grassroots. She shows that human rights politics are constituted locally and reinforced by transnational linkages in international society. The U.N. system is continuously reinvigorated and strengthened by its ties to local individuals, organizations, and groups engaged in day-to-day rights advocacy. This daily work, in turn, is supported by the ongoing activities from above. Quataert establishes the global contexts for the historical unfolding of human rights advocacy through thorough studies of such cases as the Soviet dissident movement, the mothers' demonstrations in Argentina, the transnational antiapartheid campaign, and coalitions for gender and economic justice. Drawing from many fields of inquiry, including legal studies, philosophy, international relations theory, political science, and gender history, Advocating Dignity is an innovative work that narrates the hopes and bitter struggles that have altered the course of international and domestic relations over the past sixty years

Includes bibliographical references and index

The new moral order : between human dignity and territorial sovereignty -- Raising the bar, 1900-1949 -- An emerging human rights orthodoxy : the first round -- Cold War politics and human rights publics : the international antiapartheid and Soviet dissident movements, 1952-90 -- Mothers' courage and U.N. monitoring of disappearance, 1973-83 -- The debate continues : critics and new mechanisms -- The gender factor since the 1970s : universality and the private sphere -- Citizenship, socioeconomic rights, and the courts in the age of transnational migrations -- Human rights at a crossroads : wars, crimes, and priorities -- Ethnic violence, humanitarian intervention, and criminal accountability in the 1990s -- September 2001 and history -- Making a difference

Jean H. Quataert is Professor of History at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and author of several books, including Staging Philanthropy: Patriotic Women and the National Imagination in Dynastic Germany, 1813-1916

online resource; title from PDF title page (ProQuest Ebook Central, viewed July 6, 2021)

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