Human Rights Protection in Global Politics: Responsibilities of States and Non-State Actors

Human Rights Protection in Global Politics analyzes the contemporary human rights responsibilities of state, non-state and international actors. It includes an interdisciplinary set of perspectives based in international relations, politics, law and philosophy. The book seeks to understand — but also to critique and to move beyond — the contributions of, firstly, the 'respect-protect-fulfil' tripartite division of human rights responsibility, and secondly, the more recent 'Responsibility to Protect' policy framework. It rejects approaches that treat duties to respect, not to harm, or not to violate human rights as entirely constitutive of the responsibilities that global actors have. The book's contributors engage in dialogue with each other, and sometimes even disagree. However, they are unified in their attempt to paint a more complex picture than is currently available about the nature of human rights protection and various global actors' responsibility for it.