Universal Human Rights

James examines at a broad level the concept of universalistic and "dignitarian" human rights, as expressed in such covenants as the International Bill of Rights, two United Nations documents published in 1966 that delineate civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights for all human beings. He gives an interdisciplinary account of the historical, legal, political, theoretical and philosophical development of ideas about human rights from the beginnings of our understanding of them up to 1939, describes the horrors of World War II and the resulting goal of the then-developing UN to create a universal declaration of human rights, and examines the often clashing concepts and motivations behind the creation of the 1966 covenants.