The Human Rights Reader

The third edition of The Human Rights Reader presents a variety of new primary documents and readings and elaborates the exploration of rights in the areas of race, gender, refugees, climate, Artificial Intelligence, drones and cyber security, and nationalism and Internationalism. In the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, it addresses human rights challenges reflected in and posed by global health inequities. Each part of the reader corresponds to five historical phases in the history of human rights and explores the arguments, debates, and issues of inclusiveness central to those eras. This edition is the most comprehensive and up-to-date collection of essays, speeches, and documents from historical and contemporary sources, all of which are placed in context with Micheline Ishay’s substantial introduction to the Reader as a whole and context-setting introductions to each part and chapter.

New to the Third Edition



60 new readings and documents cover subjects ranging from human rights in the age of globalization and populism, debates of the rights of citizens versus those of refugees and immigrants, transgender rights, the new Jim Crow, and the future of human rights as they relate to digital surveillance, the pandemic, and bioengineering
Part I has been reorganized into three chapters: the Secular Tradition, Asian and African Religions and Traditions, and the Monotheistic Religions
Part V has been significantly updated and expanded with the addition of an entirely new chapter — "Debating the Future of Human Rights."
Each of the six parts in the book is preceded by an editorial introduction and, in four of the parts, a separate selection providing the reader with a general background on the history and themes represented in the readings that follow
Each part and several chapters conclude with new Questions for Discussion authored by the volume editor
An extensive new online resource includes 62 key human rights documents ranging from the Magna Carta to the United Nations Glasgow Climate Pact