Global Basic Rights

Politically, as well as philosophically, concerns with human rights have permeated many of the most important debates on social justice worldwide for fully a half-century. Henry Shue's 1980 book on Basic Rights proved to be a pioneering contribution to those debates, and one that continues to elicit both critical and constructive comment. Global Basic Rights brings together many of the most influential contemporary writers in political philosophy and international relations--Charles Beitz, Robert Goodin, Christian Reus-Smit, Andrew Hurrell, Judith Lichtenberg, Elizabeth Ashford, Thomas Pooge, Neta Crawford, Richard Miller, David Luban, Jeremy Waldron and Simon Caney--to explore some of the most challenging theoretical and practical questions that Shue's work provokes. These range from the question of the responsibilities of the global rich to redress severe poverty to the permissibility of using torture to gain information to fight international terrorism. The contributors explore the continuing value of the idea of "basic rights" in understanding moral challenges as diverse as child labor and global climate change.

Charles Beitz is Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs. He has written books and articles in global political theory (The Idea of Human Rights, OUP 2009; Political Theory and International Relations, rev. ed. Princeton UP 1999) and democratic theory (Political Equality, Princeton UP 1989). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Robert Goodin is Distinguished Professor of Social & Political Theory and Philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University, having previously taught in the Government Department at the University of Essex. He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, founding editor of The Journal of Political Philosophy and general editor of the ten-volume series of Oxford Handbooks of Political Science. His work straddles democratic theory (Reflective Democracy, OUP 2003; Innovating Democracy, OUP 2008), empirical welfare-state studies (The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, CUP 1999; Discretionary Time, CUP 2008) and theoretical reflections on public policy (Social Welfare as an Individual Responsibility, CUP 1998; What's Wrong with Terrorism? Polity 2006).