Author Description
This edited collection, based on the 2001 Oxford Amnesty Lectures, focuses on human rights abuses and the way in which these are interpreted. The contributors are Tzvetan Todorov, Michael Ignatieff, Gayatri Spivak, Peter Singer, Gitta Sereny, Geoffrey Bindman, Susan Sontag, and Eva Hoffman, with commentaries on their essays from Niall Fergusson, Timothy Garton Ash, Hermione Lee, and others. The issues explored in the talks include the right of the international community to military intervention in human rights abuses, the ethical and legal difficulties in bringing rights abusers to justice, the human tendency towards racist attitudes, the impact of postcolonialism, and the way in which human evil is represented in photography.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This collection investigates the complex intersection of moral philosophy, international law, and historical memory regarding the interpretation and enforcement of human rights. Editor Nicholas Owen compiles a series of lectures from the 2001 Oxford Amnesty series, featuring contributions from prominent intellectuals such as Michael Ignatieff, Peter Singer, and Susan Sontag. The text examines how global society defines, documents, and responds to systemic abuses through both ethical frameworks and practical legal interventions.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of the legitimacy of international military intervention in sovereign states.
- Ethical and legal challenges inherent in prosecuting human rights violators.
- Discussions on the psychological roots of racism and the legacy of postcolonialism.
- Critiques of how visual media and photography represent human suffering and evil.
- Commentary essays from historians and literary critics providing context to the primary lectures.
Scope Limits
- The text does not provide a comprehensive legal manual for international human rights litigation.
- It does not offer a singular, unified political solution to the problems of global interventionism.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Experts recognize this volume as a significant interdisciplinary resource for understanding the intellectual climate surrounding human rights discourse at the turn of the millennium. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which reflects the high-level philosophical and historical rigor of the contributors.
Page Count:
368
Publication Date:
2003-04-03
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0192802194
ISBN-13:
9780192802194
Philosophy
Human rights
International relations
Sociology
Ethics