Review Essays

Volume 2 (2002)


Issue 1

Horror Unmasked: Truth or Fiction?

By Lars Buur and Eric Harper

A Country Unmasked: Inside South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Alex Boraine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 448pp.

Keywords: South Africa; truth and reconciliation; democratization

Opening the Dichotomy of Universalism and Relativism

By Chih-yu Shih

Negotiating Culture and Human Rights edited by Linda S. Bell, Andrew J. Nathan and Ilan Peleg. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 428pp.

East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia by Daniel A. Bell. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. 369pp.

Keywords: universality; cultural relativism; East Asia; diversity; democracy

Explaining Rwanda's 1994 Genocide

By Paul Magnarella

When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda by Mahmood Mamdani. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. 364pp.

Genocide in Rwanda: A Collective Memory edited by John A. Berry and Carol Pott Berry. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1999. 201pp.

Keywords: Rwandan genocide; colonialism; anthropology; collective memory

Kosovo and Beyond: Is Humanitarian Intervention Transforming International Society?

By Roberto Belloni

The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions edited by Ken Booth. Portland: Frank Cass, 2001.

Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society by Nicholas J. Wheeler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 352pp.

Keywords: humanitarian intervention; Serbia; Yugoslavia; Kosovo; international relations theory


Issue 2

The Global and the Local: Reconciling Universal Human Rights and Cultural Diversity

By Amy Eckert

Human Rights and Global Diversity edited by Simon Caney and Peter Jones. Portland, OR: Frank Cass & Co., 2001. 173 pp.

Cultural Pluralism and Dilemmas of Justice by Monique Deveaux. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. 205 pp.

Keywords: universality; cultural relativism, diversity

Defending the Universality and Timelessness of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A View from the 'Developing World'

By Shaista Shameem

Human Rights: Concepts, Contests, Contingencies edited by Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 144pp.

Keywords: universality; developing countries; universal declaration of human rights

Between God and Democracy

By Andrew Fagan

Understanding Human Rights Principles edited by Jeffrey Jowell and Jonathan Cooper. Portland, OR: Hart Publishers, 2001. 201pp.

The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries by Michael J. Perry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 162pp.

Keywords: democracy, equality, human dignity, nihilism, secularism

Searching for Justice in an Unjust World

By Sharon Healey

Stay the Hand of Vengeance by Jonathan Gary Bass. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. 368pp.

For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Prosecutor by Richard Goldstone. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. 152pp.

Keywords: war crimes tribunals; crimes against humanity; reconciliation

Human Rights & Human Welfare is edited by representatives of an international consortium of research centers, and is managed by the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. The global character of the Consortium permits HRHW to review materials written in all of the major languages. Visit our About Us page for more information.

Essays published in Human Rights & Human Welfare are simultaneously available through the Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) website, EBSCO Host's SocIndex with Full Text Database, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) website.

Note: This site uses Adobe PDF files. You will need Adobe Acrobat to read these files. For a free copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here.