��������

We are proud to celebrate the publication of Human Rights and the United Nations: Paradox and Promise edited by Dr. Abigail Bakan, Professor in the Department of Social Justice Education. This timely volume critically examines the United Nations as a site of both promise and paradox in the advancement of human rights. Through contributions that explore issues such as statelessness, Indigenous sovereignty, racial and gender justice, and environmental rights, the book reveals how ongoing contestation within the UN produces both progress and setbacks.  

“Both study and the operation of the United Nations have been too often stifled by legal and bureaucratic technocracy. This volume reinvigorates the topic by treating this unique institution in a properly political manner. Here, the UN and its related Human Rights apparatus are addressed as sites of contestation, contradiction, and struggle, where the stakes are high and the challenges daunting. The collection is moreover exemplary in examining the UN 'from below'. Sweeping aside the bureaucrats and diplomats, we listen here to the cries, demands, ideas, and dreams of Indigenous movements, feminisms of the Global South, stateless peoples, migrant workers, and others who toil to transform these institutions into tools of emancipation. A vital contribution.” 

— Robert Nichols, Professor of History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz

Congratulations to Dr. Bakan on this significant achievement.