Description

Most Americans would be surprised to learn that their government has declined to join most other nations in UN treaties addressing inadequate housing, poverty, children's rights, health care, racial discrimination, and migrant workers. Yet this book documents how the U.S. has, for decades, declined to ratify widely accepted treaties on these and many other basic human rights. Providing the first comprehensive topical survey, the contributors build a case and specific agendas for the nation to change course and join the world community as a protector of human rights.

With Contributions by and on:

• Damayanti Banerjee on environmental rights
• Judith Blau and Alberto Moncada on rights to freedom and security
• Rodney D. Coates on cultural rights
• Mark Frezzo on rights to participation and democracy
• Brian K. Gran on children’s rights
• Bryan S. Turner on individual vs. social rights
• Dave Overfelt and David L. Brunsma on housing rights
• Antonio Ugalde and Núria Homedes on health rights
• Vincent J. Roscigno and Andrew W. Martin on labor and workers’ rights
• Tanya Golash-Boza and Douglas Parker on language rights
• John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond on humanitarian law
• Angela Hattery and Earl Smith on prisoners’ rights
• Keri E. Iyall Smith on rights of indigenous peoples
• Marina Karides on social forums and human rights
• Gerald F. Lackey on rights of sexuality and gender
• Jean M. Lynch on rights of individuals with disabilities
• Cecilia Menjívar and Rubén G. Rumbaut on migrant and minority rights
• Tola Olu Pearce on women’s rights
• Jenniffer M. Santos-Hernández and John Barnshaw on water, food, and development rights

Author Info

Judith Blau, Professor of Sociology at UNC Chapel Hill, is the president of the U.S. chapter of Sociologists Without Borders and past president of the Southern Sociological Association. Earlier books include Architects and Firms, Sociology of Art, The Shape of Culture, Social Contracts and Economic Markets, and Race in the Schools.

David L. Brunsma is an Associate Professor of Sociology/Black Studies at the University of Missouri.

Alberto Moncada has a law degree and advanced degrees in sociology and education. He has taught at universities in Madrid and the U.S. Currently he is Vice President of UNESCO Spain and President of Sociologists without Borders International. He has published over thirty Spanish-language books on various topics including the media, Latino culture, and education.

Catherine Zimmer is an Adjunct Professor of Sociology at UNC Chapel Hill.

Reviews

“This is a tightly organized volume of short essays by sociologists who advocate greater participation by the U.S. in the international human rights system; or, perhaps more accurately, they advocate a broader provision of international human rights within the U.S. It appears that most of the authors are affiliated with a fairly new activist group that calls itself Sociologists without Borders, but in any case, this is a volume that specifically advocates action. The authors characterize the U.S. as a “rogue state,” since it is internationally a laggard in the provision of social rights. The introduction by Frances Fox Piven, a well-known progressive social scientist, argues that it will only be through the organized action of social movements that a fuller menu of rights is likely to be made available to ordinary Americans. The volume is organized topically around different classes of rights (for children, women, and indigenous peoples). Each essay is short, to the point, and accompanied by a bibliography. Recommended.
—CHOICE

"The collection is particularly well suited for beginning students who want to understand the range of issues encompassed by the field of human rights, as well as the international standards governing particular issues and how U.S. behavior falls short of those standards. . . . Excellent both for providing a quick overview of a single issue, and for facilitating comparisons across issues. . . . Any reader interested in the international standards governing a particular right and U.S. action or inaction on that right, will find this a good place to start."
—H-Net Reviews

“Where once the United States saw itself—and the world saw it—as the savior of oppressed peoples, the United States is now seen as the leading rogue state. In fact, the grounds for American moral hubris were always shaky. How could the United States be a champion of human rights in the world when for two centuries, the fundamental rights embedded in the U.S. constitution, in U.S. political culture, and in U.S. laws had never been widely honored?”
—from the foreword by Frances Fox Piven

“An important book. … The contributors recap the relevant international standards and show the systematic, not merely accidental, failure of the United States to comply with these norms. And they admirably insist not only that international human rights apply to the United States but that this country in particular must be held to the highest level of performance.”
—from the postscript by Jack Donnelly