The European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 established the most effective international system of human rights protection ever created. This is the first book that gives a comprehensive account of how it came into existence, of the part played in its genesis by the British government, and of its significance for Britain in the period between 1953 and 1966.

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire offers the most comprehensive treatment of the causes, course, and consequences of the collapse of empires in the twentieth century. The volume's contributors convey the global reach of decolonization, analysing the ways in which European, Asian, and African empires disintegrated over the past century.

A new moral, ethical, and legal framework is needed for international human rights law. Never in human history has there been such an elaborate international system for human rights, yet from massive disasters, such as the Darfur genocide, to everyday tragedies, such as female genital mutilation, human rights abuses continue at an alarming rate. As the world population increases and global trade brings new wealth as well as new problems, international law can and should respond better to those who live in fear of violence, neglect, or harm. Modern critiques global human rights fall into three categories: sovereignty, culture, and civil society. These are not new problems, but have long been debated as part of the legal philosophical tradition. Taking lessons from tradition and recasting them in contemporary light, Helen Stacy proposes new approaches to fill the gaps in current approaches: relational sovereignty, reciprocal adjudication, and regional human rights. She forcefully argues that law and courts must play a vital role in forging a better human rights vision in the future.

BY THE AUTHOR OF CHERNOBYL: HISTORY OF A TRAGEDY, WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2018 WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2015 On Christmas Day 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. By the next day the USSR was officially no more and the USA had emerged as the world’s sole superpower. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy presents a page-turning account of the preceding five months of drama, filled with failed coups d’état and political intrigue. Honing in on this previously disregarded but crucial period and using recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, he shatters the established myths of 1991 and presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union’s final months. Plokhy argues that contrary to the triumphalist Western narrative, George H. W. Bush desperately wanted to preserve the Soviet Union and keep Gorbachev in power, and that it was Ukraine and not the US that played the key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The consequences of those five months and the myth-making that has since surrounded them are still being felt in Crimea, Russia, the US, and Europe today. With its spellbinding narrative and strikingly fresh perspective, The Last Empire is the essential account of one of the most important watershed periods in world history, and is indispensable reading for anyone seeking to make sense of international politics today.

Our world is in crisis mode, but God is still on the throne in this powerful and prophetic book from New York Times bestselling author and pastor John Hagee. Bible prophecy clearly reveals that immediately prior to the rapture of the Church, four powerful kings will race onto the stage of world history. Pastor Hagee reveals who they are, where they come from, and what they signify. Learn why Hagee believes that we are in the beginning stages of World War III, and how this will eventually take us to the Battle of Armageddon. Pastor Hagee vividly describes the key players that signify the King is coming!

The Chinese Yearbook of Human Rights is co-sponsored by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, and three institutes under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences – the Institute of Law, the Centre for Human Rights Studies and the Centre for International Law Studies. The purpose of the Chinese Yearbook of Human Rights is to create a forum for the academic exchange between China and the international community in the field of human rights. Accordingly, the Yearbook will aim to publish high quality academic articles written by scholars from both China and other countries on human rights issues from perspectives of law, philosophy, political science, history, and international relations.

"The State of War and Peace Atlas brings together a global picture of the bloody costs of war: the death tolls; the plight of refugees; lasting environmental damage; the collapse of whole states. It closes on a tentative note of hope by mapping the world of peace diplomacy and our global peacekeeping processes."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Building on his extensive experience in the U.S. government and as an international human rights lawyer, H. Knox Thames provides fresh, decisive strategies to advance religious freedom for all. Today, a scourge of religious persecution is impacting every faith community around the globe. In Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom, author H. Knox Thames takes readers to some of the world's most repressive countries in the Middle East and Asia, exposing the harsh reality of religious repression. Thames breaks down the devastating litany of human rights abuses faced by religious groups in these countries into four major types of persecution: terrorism in the Middle East, government-sponsored genocides in China and Burma, cultural changes due to extremism in Pakistan, and tyrannical democracy in Nepal and India. Ending Persecution recounts the range of tools and policies that the U.S. government has used to encourage reform in repressive governments, leverage U.S. influence for the oppressed, and to reflect the best of American values of diversity, minority rights, and religious freedom. To help the persecuted in the twenty-first century, Thames argues, the United States must revitalize its approach and recommit to ending oppression by supporting coalition building and interfaith tolerance.

A wide-ranging political biography of diplomat, Nobel prize winner, and civil rights leader Ralph Bunche. Ralph Bunche is one of the most prominent Black Americans of the twentieth century. He was not only a legendary diplomat, scholar, and civil rights leader, but also the first African American to obtain a political science Ph.D. from Harvard, and before the Second World War, he provided extensive research assistance to Gunnar Myrdal for his landmark work on race in America, An American Dilemma. He worked for the OSS--the precursor to the CIA--during the early years of the war as well as the State Department. Yet he is far better known for his diplomatic work at the United Nations, even though his many contributions and innovations have never received their full due. In The Absolutely Indispensable Man, Kal Raustiala tells the story of Bunche's dramatic life, from his early years in prewar Los Angeles to Harvard, Howard, the US State Department, and eventually the UN. As a high-ranking UN official, Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize for his ground-breaking mediation of the first Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948-49. In the years to follow, he was a key player in many of the most important developments in the international order and did pioneering work for the UN on conflict management and the development of UN peacekeeping. But as Raustiala argues, his most enduring achievement was his work to dismantle the European empire. As a scholar and civil rights activist, Bunche perceptively saw colonialism as a central issue of the 20th century, and decolonization as a project of global racial justice. His work for the UN during the decolonization era--which stretched from the end of World War II to the 1960s--was crucially important, and Raustiala places it at the center of his account. From marching with Martin Luther King to advising presidents and prime ministers, Bunche shaped our world in lasting ways. This definitive biography gives him his due. It also reminds us that decolonization and the end of empire not only fundamentally transformed world politics, but also powerfully intersected with America's own civil rights struggle.