[hr-education-na] Developing a "teacher friendly" human rights textbook

Dear Colleagues,

This is a request for your professional advice regarding a prospective
third edition of Richard Pierre Claude and Burns H. Weston, Human Rights
in the World Community: Issues and Action. The University of Pennsylvania
Press is planning a thoroughly revised new edition for late 2004, and we
co-editors seek your critical advice on what to include.

As you know, there has been an explosion of new literature on
international human rights since the end of the Cold War, and students in
the field need an interdisciplinary textbook that emphasizes new
perspectives, issues, and modes of implementation. The book, essentially
an anthology, will maintain the organizational framework of our first two
editions. That is, six chapters will again respectively focus on: theory
and introduction; issues in political and civil rights; issues in social,
economic and cultural rights; and action in terms of implementation
efforts at the international (including regional levels), national, and
non-governmental/civil society"/ "second superpower" (Internet)  levels.
Within this "issues and action" framework, we will present edited versions
of about 30 newly selected readings.

Human Rights in the World Community is a unique paperback textbook for
several reasons. It has proved useful both in law schools and in advanced
undergraduate and graduate classes. As befits the multi-variate problems
that arise in human rights, the textbook is interdisciplinary. A lengthy
editors' introduction reviews recent legal, social science, and humanities
literature useful in framing the essays that follow. Moreover, each essay
is followed by multiple carefully composed and pre-tested discussion
questions suitable to promote discussion and debate in seminars and even
large classes. Bibliography and notes on films and other art forms (e.g.,
theater, music, literature),  research resources, and the Internet will be
included.

Again, we hope to provide a "teacher friendly" anthology with pedagogical
objectives promoting cognitive and analytical skills as well as value
clarification. Given these objectives, previously published articles will
be chosen because of their importance in setting the agenda for current
analysis of important salient issues. Sometimes, but not always and
separate from that standard, we seek articles that are provocative and
about which classroom debate and discussion will further the objective of
students clarifying their own views on controversial topics.

Also, because most of the inclusions in the human rights textbook will
come from among post-Cold War publications, there will necessarily be an
increased emphasis on social, economic, and cultural issues as well as
security, peace, and environmental issues related to human rights.

Given these standards, please identify one or more of those works you
think are essential for your students' consideration, and do not hesitate
to "self-nominate." Please supply as complete citations as you can to
either or both of the co-editors listed above.

Many thanks,

Richard Pierre Claude
E-Mail: profclaude@aol.com

Burns H. Weston
E-mail: burns- weston@uiowa.edu



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