Understanding Human Rights: Origins, Currents and Critiques

"Understanding Human Rights: Origins, Currents and Critiques" is a comprehensive text on human rights with a Canadian perspective. Although the principles underlying human rights have been generally acknowledged and accepted by the vast majority, debate about the universality of such rights can provoke strong reactions among people of different cultural backgrounds. The objective of "Understanding Human Rights: Origins, Currents and Critiques" is to introduce the students to the historical origins of the concept of human rights: the international regime and the acceptance of several generation of rights such as civil and political rights, economic rights, group rights and women's rights: the critiques of universalism, the problems of implementation of human rights and Canada's record on human rights.