Advocating Dignity: Human Rights Mobilizations in Global Politics

Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights

by Jean H. Quataert

In Advocating Dignity, Jean H. Quataert explores the emergence, development, and impact of the human rights revolution following World War II. Intertwining popular local and national mobilizations for rights with ongoing developments of a formal international system of rights monitoring in the United Nations, Quataert argues that human rights advocacy networks have been a vital dimension of international political developments since 1945. Recalling the popular slogan "Think globally, act locally," she contends that postwar human rights have been shaped by the efforts of people at the grassroots. She shows that human rights politics are constituted locally and reinforced by transnational linkages in international society. The U.N. system is continuously reinvigorated and strengthened by its ties to local individuals, organizations, and groups engaged in day-to-day rights advocacy. This daily work, in turn, is supported by the ongoing activities from above.Quataert

376 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2009

About the author

Jean Hale Quataert is Distinguished Research Professor of History at Binghamton University, State University of New York.