Book Review: Human Rights and Their Limits, by Wiktor Osiatyński and Advocating Dignity: Human Rights Mobilizations in Global Politics, by Jean H. Quataert

Abstract

In their contributions to the scholarship on human rights, Jean Quataert and Wiktor Osiatyński appear, at first blush, to be engaged in quite different projects. Quataert’s book is a social historian’s study of the impact of transnational human rights movements on the development of human rights. Osiatyński’s project, meanwhile, is a theoretical and practical contribution to debates in four contested human rights themes. Nevertheless, the books reveal some significant intersections, which illustrate the emergence of new areas of interest in the field of human rights scholarship. Specifically, both works evidence a growing attention to narratives of history, and historical reinterpretations, in understanding current and future possibilities for human rights. The author reviews these works, and suggests how they connect to the emerging debates in human rights thought.

Keywords: human rights, history, social movements