Product Description

A revised and updated edition of Geoffrey Robertson's impassioned, authoritative guide to an issue of massive global importance. He tells the dramatic story of how the human rights idea has come to dominate world politics. He reveals how human rights has penetrated the legal armour of the sovereign State. He sets out, without legal jargon, the rights of humankind in the 21st Century. And he predicts what this movement has in store - not only for tyrants and torturers, but also for the superpowers who still resist the demands for universal justice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36386 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 800 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
On 24 March 1999, the English law lords delivered their final verdict on the General Pinochet case, and coincidentally NATO started bombing Serbia from the air. These qualified successes, despite equivocal legality, showed a tide-turn in the momentum of the struggle against the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, be they individuals or states. Geoffrey Robertson, an advocate of human rights for many years, devotes the first half of this persuasive and forthright book to the history of human rights thinking until the pivotal Nuremberg Charter of 1945, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and the recent development of international law to govern them. He marshals his arguments with the tenacious verve and immutable confidence one expects from his profession, and the hi-octane polemic allows little space for the refuge of uncertainty, and indeed prompts the occasional speculation that you're being sold a rotten piece of fruit hidden among the ripe. The more satisfying second half focuses on familiar troublespots of the last decade or so, particularly Kosovo, as well as the wearying impotence of the United Nations, and the establishment of necessarily cautious war crimes tribunals in The Hague and Arusha. Robertson has his favourites (HG Wells and Thomas Paine), and his bête noires (US senator Jesse Helms, Pinochet, cultural relativism), and it rankles considerably that the US, which sets itself up as a moral custodian, refuses to sign up for an International Criminal Court for fear of compromising its sovereignty. For all the choice rhetoric, without enforcement any notion of global justice is mere lip-service, and the conclusion Robertson reaches, as any good lawyer would, is that only a universally ratified international criminal court will turn pious words into effective action. The world is shrinking rapidly, and the last 10 years have seen human rights become a fashionable concern; important books like this allow little room for moral complacency, even while the soft shoe shuffle of diplomacy finally begins to give way to the march of justice. --David Vincent

About the Author
Geoffrey Robertson QC has appeared as counsel in landmark human rights cases in British, International and Commonwealth courts. He is Head of Doughty Street Chambers and Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Birkbeck College. His other books include FREEDOM, THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE LAW and MEDIA LAW (both in Penguin) and his memoir, THE JUSTICE GAME, was published in 1998. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Excellent and well presented arguments for human rights
Robertson provides an erudite and provocative examination of the development of human rights theories and the haphazard attempts to secure them around the world. His message is simple: more needs to be done and part of that requires reform of the UN to make it more independent. He collates a variety of stories and policy failures that have a justified emotional impact on the reader, but his style remains objective and clear. This is a useful text for human rights activists but also students of political theory, ethics, and modern history. Highly recommendable.

Excellent book for understanding Human Rights
I did a Diploma in International Relations which included International Law. I wish I had read this book to aid me in my Thesis on Human Rights.

The book is written well enough for anyone to pick it up and understand Human Rights Laws without a good understanding of law.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in International Human Rights, especially with the current violations of Human Rights across the globe.