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A network dedicated to building a culture of human rights

Books – Human Rights

America Needs Human Rights
Makes a powerful case that both the letter and spirit of universally recognized human rights are routinely violated in America by government policies that safeguard profits rather than people. Topics include understanding human rights, basic needs, the new American crisis, poverty in America, welfare reform, policy options, and movement building.

  • Author: Anuradha Mittal and Peter Rosset
  • Source: Food FIrst
  • Grade Level: Adult


The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen
Explores the dramatic transformation of a world patterned by centuries of traditional structures of authority, gender abuse, racial prejudice, class divisions and slavery, colonial empires, and claims of national sovereignty into a global community that now boldly proclaims that the way governments treat their own people is a matter of international concern–and sets the goal of human rights “for all peoples and all nations.” Widely acclaimed.

  • Author: Paul Lauren
  • Source: Univ. Pennsylvania Press, 2003
  • Grade Level: Adult 


Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law
Argues that international law shares with the modern novel a particular conception of the human individual. The Bildungsroman, the novel of coming of age, offering a conceptual vocabulary, a humanist social vision, and a narrative grammar for what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and early literary theorists both call “the free and full development of the human personality.”

  • Author: Joseph R. Slaughter
  • Publisher: Fordham, 2007


Human Rights in the United States: A Dictionary Document
Explains basic concepts, laws, and case law in the field, with emphasis on human rights in the historical, political and legal experience of the United States. Provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of human rights in the United States in an international context. Provides an extensive dictionary of human rights terminology, charts on the structure of the United Nations and other human rights systems, lists of treaties the US has signed and ratified, selected US legislation regarding human rights, as well as ten court decisions in precedent-setting human rights cases.

  • Author: Rita Cantos Cartwright, H. Victor Conde
  • Publisher ABC-Clio, 2000
  • Grade Level: reference book 


Something Inside So Strong: A Resource Guide on Human Rights in the United States
Offers US activists an additional rights vision, framework, and set of tools to use in their struggles for justice and human rights.

  • Source: US Human Rights Network, 2003
  • Grade Level: adult 


Teachers, Human Rights and Diversity
How should we educate citizens in multicultural societies? Reports on recent research in this field and considers the implications for teachers, teacher education and student teachers. Case studies illustrate how young citizens can learn to apply the principles of human rights and equality in resolving complex and controversial issues.

  • Author: Audrey Osler
  • Publisher: Trentham Books, 2005
  • Grade Level: adults, educators


Understanding Human Rights: A Manual of Human Rights Education
A comprehensive manual with three main parts: a general introduction into the basics of human rights; a special part with selected “core issues” in the form of modules, which should help to understand the functioning of human rights in daily life; and a third, so-called “additional resources part”, which contains methodological hints, useful information, and references to further reading and on-line re- sources. Extensive discussion lesson plans, resources on specific human rights topics.

  • Editor: Wolfgang Benedek
  • Publisher: European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ETC)
  • Grade Level: high school, adults, educators


Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice
The third edition of this classic work explains and defends a richly interdisciplinary account of human rights as universal rights. Shows that any conception of human right, and the idea of human rights itself, is historically specific and contingent.

  • Author: Jack Donnelly
  • Source: Cornell, 2004
  • Grade Level: adult
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The core values of HRE USA and its partner organizations include transparency and critical thinking skills. We believe that human rights--and human rights education--belong to everyone, and that the full realization of human rights means that access to human rights education materials must never be conditioned upon the subscription to any particular religious faith, ideology, political affiliation, or membership in any particular organization and that any organizational connections should be openly acknowledged.