The Hidden Face Of Rights

Why we cannot truly implement human rights unless we also recognize human responsibilities When we debate questions in international law, politics, and justice, we often use the language of rights—and far less often the language of responsibilities. Human rights scholars and activists talk about state responsibility for rights, but they do not articulate clear norms about other actors’ obligations. In this book, Kathryn Sikkink argues that we cannot truly implement human rights unless we also recognize and practice the corresponding human responsibilities. Focusing on five areas—climate change, voting, digital privacy, freedom of speech, and sexual assault—where on-the-ground (primarily university campus) initiatives have persuaded people to embrace a close relationship between rights and responsibilities, Sikkink argues for the importance of responsibilities to any comprehensive understanding of political ethics and human rights.

Why we cannot truly implement human rights unless we also recognize human responsibilities When we debate questions in international law, politics, and justice, we often use the language of rights--and far less often the language of responsibilities. Human rights scholars and activists talk about state responsibility for rights, but they do not articulate clear norms about other actors' obligations. In this book, Kathryn Sikkink argues that we cannot truly implement human rights unless we also recognize and practice the corresponding human responsibilities. Focusing on five areas--climate change, voting, digital privacy, freedom of speech, and sexual assault--and providing many examples of on-the-ground initiatives where people choose to embrace a close relationship between rights and responsibilities, Sikkink argues for the importance of responsibilities to any comprehensive understanding of political ethics and human rights.

A lyrical memoir that identifies the pressure to conform as a hidden threat to our civil rights, drawing on the author’s life as a gay Asian American man and his career as an acclaimed legal scholar. “[Kenji] Yoshino offers his personal search for authenticity as an encouragement for everyone to think deeply about the ways in which all of us have covered our true selves. . . . We really do feel newly inspired.”—The New York Times Book Review Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Racial minorities are pressed to “act white” by changing their names, languages, or cultural practices. Women are told to “play like men” at work. Gays are asked not to engage in public displays of same-sex affection. The devout are instructed to minimize expressions of faith, and individuals with disabilities are urged to conceal the paraphernalia that permit them to function. Given its pervasiveness, we may experience this pressure to be a simple fact of social life. Against conventional understanding, Kenji Yoshino argues that the work of American civil rights law will not be complete until it attends to the harms of coerced conformity. Though we have come to some consensus against penalizing people for differences based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, and disability, we still routinely deny equal treatment to people who refuse to downplay differences along these lines. At the same time, Yoshino is responsive to the American exasperation with identity politics, which often seems like an endless parade of groups asking for state and social solicitude. He observes that the ubiquity of covering provides an opportunity to lift civil rights into a higher, more universal register. Since we all experience the covering demand, we can all make common cause around a new civil rights paradigm based on our desire for authenticity—a desire that brings us together rather than driving us apart. Praise for Covering “Yoshino argues convincingly in this book, part luminous, moving memoir, part cogent, level-headed treatise, that covering is going to become more and more a civil rights issue as the nation (and the nation’s courts) struggle with an increasingly multiethnic America.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[A] remarkable debut . . . [Yoshino’s] sense of justice is pragmatic and infectious.”—Time Out New York

"Nowhere did two understandings of U.S. identity—human rights and anticommunism—come more in conflict with each other than they did in Latin America. To refocus U.S. policy on human rights and democracy required a rethinking of U.S. policy as a whole. It required policy makers to choose between policies designed to defeat communism at any cost and those that remain within the bounds of the rule of law."—from the Introduction Kathryn Sikkink believes that the adoption of human rights policy represents a positive change in the relationship between the United States and Latin America. In Mixed Signals she traces a gradual but remarkable shift in U.S. foreign policy over the last generation. By the 1970s, an unthinking anticommunist stance had tarnished the reputation of the U.S. government throughout Latin America, associating Washington with tyrannical and often brutally murderous regimes. Sikkink recounts the reemergence of human rights as a substantive concern, showing how external pressures from activist groups and the institution of a human rights bureau inside the State Department have combined to remake Washington's agenda, and its image, in Latin America. The current war against terrorism, Sikkink warns, could repeat the mistakes of the past unless we insist that the struggle against terrorism be conducted with respect for human rights and the rule of law.

A history of the successes of the human rights movement and a case for why human rights work Evidence for Hope makes the case that yes, human rights work. Critics may counter that the movement is in serious jeopardy or even a questionable byproduct of Western imperialism. Guantánamo is still open and governments are cracking down on NGOs everywhere. But human rights expert Kathryn Sikkink draws on decades of research and fieldwork to provide a rigorous rebuttal to doubts about human rights laws and institutions. Past and current trends indicate that in the long term, human rights movements have been vastly effective. Exploring the strategies that have led to real humanitarian gains since the middle of the twentieth century, Evidence for Hope looks at how essential advances can be sustained for decades to come.

Written by a Catholic journalist who has investigated feminism on its own ground, this remarkable book fully exposes the hidden face of Catholic feminism for the first time, revealing its theoretical and psychological roots in loss of faith. A definitive account of a movement impelled by vengeful rage to revolt against all spiritual authority.

An MIT-trained scientist explores how recent research provides reasons for faith—and hints about the ultimate nature of reality. Gerald Schroeder, who has worked in both physics and biology, has emerged in recent years as one of the most popular and accessible apostles for the melding of science and religion. He first reconciled science and faith as different perspectives on a single whole in The Science of God. Now, in The Hidden Face of God, Schroeder takes a bold step forward to show that science, properly understood, provides positive reasons for faith. Recent research in biology, chemistry, physics, and neuroscience contains unmistakable hints about the ultimate nature of reality. Simply put, we now know not only that behind matter lies energy, but also that behind energy lies wisdom. Scientists have touched on this wisdom in the laboratory, and its implications are awesome. From the wisdom encoded in DNA and analyzed by information science, to the wisdom unveiled in the fantastic complexity of cellular life, to the wisdom inherent in human consciousness, this book offers a tour of the best of modern science. Schroeder makes no attempt to “prove” the existence of God. Yet his interpretations of the work of his fellow scientists touch on life’s ultimate mysteries. His wise observations on the organization of organic life, on the power of humans to make sense of their sensory inputs, and on the complexities of the code of DNA all show that life has a direction and purpose that cannot be explained in purely physical terms. Throughout, he addresses three great themes: the question of first causes (i.e., where do the laws of nature come from?); the inseparability of mind and matter; and the philosophical problem of design. To believe that a designer must have been involved, he reminds us, we need not insist on perfection or on our view of perfection in the design. The Hidden Face of God will open a world of science to religious believers, and cause skeptics to rethink some of their deepest beliefs. “His enthusiasm and sense of wonder are personally engaging, and his metaphysical speculations reflect a wry humility that cannot be taken for granted in this genre.” —Publishers Weekly “At the heart of the cell, in the depths of the quasar, lies a deep wisdom encoded in a unified chain of information. Let rigid atheists and biblical literalists take a pass, but this book deserves widespread circulation among readers still alive to the hidden harmonies of the universe.” —Booklist

Over the past three decades, hundreds of government officials have gone from being immune to any accountability for their human rights violations to being the subjects of highly publicized trials in Latin America, Europe, and Africa, resulting in enormous media attention and severe consequences. Here, renowned scholar Kathryn Sikkink brings to light the groundbreaking emergence of these human rights trials as a modern political tool, one that is changing the face of global politics as we know it. Drawing on personal experience and extensive research, Sikkink explores the building of this movement toward justice, from its roots in Nuremberg to the watershed trials in Greece and Argentina. She shows how the foundations for the stunning, public indictments of Slobodan Milošević and Augusto Pinochet were laid by the long, tireless activism of civilians, many of whose own families had been destroyed, and whose fight for justice sometimes came at the risk of their own lives and careers. She also illustrates what effect the justice cascade has had on democracy, conflict, and repression, and what it means for leaders and citizens everywhere, including the policymakers behind our own "war on terror."--From publisher description.

Hidden in Plain Sight tells the tragic untold story of children's rights in America. It asks why the United States today, alone among nations, rejects the most universally embraced human-rights document in history, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This book is a call to arms for America to again be a leader in human rights, and to join the rest of the civilized world in recognizing that the thirst for justice is not for adults alone. Barbara Bennett Woodhouse explores the meaning of children's rights throughout American history, interweaving the childhood stories of iconic figures such as Benjamin Franklin with those of children less known but no less courageous, like the heroic youngsters who marched for civil rights. How did America become a place where twelve-year-old Lionel Tate could be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 1999 death of a young playmate? In answering questions like this, Woodhouse challenges those who misguidedly believe that America's children already have more rights than they need, or that children's rights pose a threat to parental autonomy or family values. She reveals why fundamental human rights and principles of dignity, equality, privacy, protection, and voice are essential to a child's journey into adulthood, and why understanding rights for children leads to a better understanding of human rights for all. Compassionate, wise, and deeply moving, Hidden in Plain Sight will force an examination of our national resistance--and moral responsibility--to recognize children's rights.