This volume contains terms often found in international human rights instruments together with clear, authentic, objective and easily understandable definitions of them. Human rights are so fundamental and so important for everyone that all human rights documents should be understood by anyone, old or young, educated or uneducated, expert or non-expert. Yet many human rights conventions, declarations, instruments and volumes and papers are extremely hard to comprehend or are easily misunderstood because certain expressions and terms are not clearly defined, or are written in such a way that only those familiar with UN jargon can understand. This publication is a useful tool for those who face such difficulty in understanding UN human rights documents and other texts. The volume is easy to use, yet rich in detail, and will be an indispensable tool for practitioners, researchers and students of human rights law.

This Lexicon, aimed at NGOs, lawyers, diplomats and students, follows the same method as the Lexicon of Human Rights - Les définitions des droits de l'homme, published by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers in 2008. Definitions related to the environment are gathered by extracting them from relevant universal scope texts. This ordered grouping of definitions will enlighten the reader about the priorities of the international community regarding environmental law. Definitions are classified in alphabetical order, in separate English and French lists. In each language there is an alphabetical list of common terms with the equivalent second language term in square brackets. The list gives the exact detailed meaning followed by the source of each term. Following this list, a lexicon of the same terms is given under such general themes as "Mammals", "Gas", "Lead". Finally, a list of relevant documents which can be referenced for further information is included.

This volume contains terms often found in international human rights instruments together with clear, authentic, objective and easily understandable definitions of them. Human rights are so fundamental and so important for everyone that all human rights documents should be understood by anyone, old or young, educated or uneducated, expert or non-expert. Yet many human rights conventions, declarations, instruments and volumes and papers are extremely hard to comprehend or are easily misunderstood because certain expressions and terms are not clearly defined, or are written in such a way that only those familiar with UN jargon can understand. This publication is a useful tool for those who face such difficulty in understanding UN human rights documents and other texts. The volume is easy to use, yet rich in detail, and will be an indispensable tool for practitioners, researchers and students of human rights law.

Characters in some languages, particularly Hebrew and Arabic, may not display properly due to device limitations. Transliterations of terms appear before the representations in foreign characters. This is an encyclopedic dictionary of close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms and concepts that defy easy—or any—translation from one language and culture to another. Drawn from more than a dozen languages, terms such as Dasein (German), pravda (Russian), saudade (Portuguese), and stato (Italian) are thoroughly examined in all their cross-linguistic and cross-cultural complexities. Spanning the classical, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary periods, these are terms that influence thinking across the humanities. The entries, written by more than 150 distinguished scholars, describe the origins and meanings of each term, the history and context of its usage, its translations into other languages, and its use in notable texts. The dictionary also includes essays on the special characteristics of particular languages--English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Originally published in French, this one-of-a-kind reference work is now available in English for the first time, with new contributions from Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more.The result is an invaluable reference for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the multilingual lives of some of our most influential words and ideas. Covers close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms that defy easy translation between languages and cultures Includes terms from more than a dozen languages Entries written by more than 150 distinguished thinkers Available in English for the first time, with new contributions by Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more Contains extensive cross-references and bibliographies An invaluable resource for students and scholars across the humanities

Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.

List of Tables and Figure

The first contemporary overview of the critiques of human rights in Western political thought, from the French Revolution to the present day.

The Routledge Handbook of Human Rights and Disasters provides the first comprehensive review of the role played by international human rights law in the prevention and management of natural and technological disasters. Each chapter is written by a leading expert and offers a state-of-the-art overview of a significant topic within the field. In addition to focussing on the role of human rights obligations in disaster preparedness and response, the volume offers a broader perspective by examining how human rights law interacts with other legal regimes and by addressing the challenges facing humanitarian organizations. Preceded by a foreword by the International Law Commission’s Special Rapporteur on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters, the volume is divided into four parts: Part I: Human rights law and disasters in the framework of public international law Part II: Role and application of human rights law in disaster settings Part III: (Categories of) rights of particular significance in a disaster context Part IV: Protection of vulnerable groups in disaster settings Providing up-to-date and authoritative contributions covering the key aspects of human rights protection in disaster settings, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and students of humanitarianism, international law, EU law, disaster management and international relations, as well as to practitioners in the field of disaster management.