The Struggle for Human Rights

Nehal Bhuta holds the Chair of Public International Law at University of Edinburgh and is Co-Director of the Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law. He previously held the Chair of Public International Law at the European University Institute in Florence, where was also Co-Director of the Institute's Academy of European Law. He is a member of the editorial boards of the European Journal of International Law, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, Constellations and a founding editor of the interdisciplinary journal Humanity. He is also a series editor of the Oxford University Press (OUP) series in The History and Theory of International Law. Florian Hoffmann is a Professor of Law at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil, and an associate researcher in the Núcleo de Direitos Humanos (Human Rights Center) of the Law Department. Prior to this he was the Franz Haniel Chair of Public Policy (2010-2016) and the Director of the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy (2012-2015) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). Before this he taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (2008-2010) and the PUC-Rio (2003-2008). His research has focused on international law, comparative law, and human rights. He is, with Anne Orford, the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Theory of International Law (2016). Sarah Knuckey is a human rights advocate and clinical professor of law, and directs the Human Rights Clinic and the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School. She works in partnership with social justice advocates to investigate abuse and advocate for justice and rights around the world. Her academic research focuses on human rights methods and critique, armed conflict, clinical pedagogy, and mental health. Frédéric Mégret is a Professor of Law and a William Dawson Scholar at McGill University. He held the Canada Research Chair on the Law of Human Rights and Legal Pluralism from 2006 to 2015. He was promoted to full professor in 2019 and named co-director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism in 2021. Prior to joining McGill University, Professor Mégret was an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto, a Boulton fellow at McGill University and a research associate at the European University Institute in Florence. Margaret Satterthwaite is Professor of Clinical Law, Faculty Director of the Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, Co-Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the Director of the Global Justice at NYU School of Law. Her research interests include legal empowerment, vicarious trauma and wellbeing among human rights workers, and interdisciplinary methods in human rights. Before joining the academy, she clerked for Judge Betty Fletcher of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the judges of the International Court of Justice, and worked for a number of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and the Commission Nationale de Verité et de Justice in Haiti. She has authored or co-authored more than a dozen human rights reports and dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters.

Nehal Bhuta, Florian Hoffmann, Sarah Knuckey, Frédéric Mégret, and Margaret Satterthwaite: Introduction
Part 1. Arguing About the History, Theory, and Politics of Human Rights
1: Georges Abi-Saab: The Organic Intellectual
2: Hilary Charlesworth: Ritual and Ritualism in the International Human Rights System
3: Joseph H. H. Weiler: The Targeted Killing of Jesus Christ
4: Martti Koskenniemi: Rocking the Human Rights Boat: Reflections by a Fellow Passenger
5: Sally Engle Merry: The State of Human Rights Consciousness: Not Yet Endtimes
6: Euan MacDonald: Human Rights, Legitimacy and Global Governance
7: Henry Steiner: Democracy and Democracies
Part 2. Setting the Rights Agenda
8: Benedict Kingsbury: Human Rights in a Use Case World
9: Bruno Simma and Giorgia Sangiuolo: Advocating an Ad Hoc Forum for Business Human Rights Disputes
10: Olivier de Schutter: A Duty to Negotiate in Good Faith as Part of the Duty to Cooperate to Establish 'An International Legal Order in which Human Rights can be Fully Realized': the New Frontier of the Right to Development
11: Gerard Quinn: Re-considering Personhood: From ´Civil Death´ to ´Civil Life´ for Persons with Disabilities
12: Alicia Yamin: On Principle and Persuasion: Examining Philip Alston's Contribution to Economic and Social Rights through the Lens of Health
13: John Tobin: Teaching Human Rights: Four Key Capabilities
14: Malcolm Langford: Alston and Artificial Intelligence
15: Vitit Muntarbhorn: Towards ASEAN Human Rights Law
Part 3. Human Rights Mechanisms: Building, Reforming, and Critiquing Institutions
16: Thomas Hammarberg: Implementation of Treaty Obligations: Political Measures Expected of State Parties
17: Mac Darrow: Up the Stream without a Paddle - Human Rights Challenges in Mega-Infrastructure Finance and Investment
18: Andrew Clapham: Dilemmas Facing Commissions of Inquiry
19: Jose Alvarez: Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Philip Alston
20: Hélène Trigoudja: The Persuasive Authority of Philip Alston's Work for Human Rights Regional Bodies - United Nations Reports, Statements and General Comments Do Matter
Part 4. Human Rights Struggles
21: Nehal Bhuta and Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi: Dangerous Proportions: Means and Ends in Non-Finite War
22: César Rodríguez-Garavito: Disrupting Human Rights: Existential Challenges and a New Paradigm for the Field
23: Obiora Okafor: Praxis and the International Human Rights Law Scholar
24: Sarah Knuckey and Margaret Satterthwaite: Should Human Rights Practice Be Rights-Based?
25: Florian Hoffmann: Quite Enough (Still): Human Rights in (Times of) Crisis
26: Frédéric Mégret: Alston in Alabama: Towards a Theory of Praxis in International Human Rights