This book brings to light emerging evidence of a shift toward a fuller engagement with international human rights norms and their application to domestic policy dilemmas in the United States. The volume offers a rich history, spanning close to three centuries, of the marginalization of human rights discourse in the United States. Contributors analyze cases of US human rights advocacy aimed at addressing persistent inequalities within the United States itself, including advocacy on the rights of persons with disabilities; indigenous peoples; lone mother-headed families; incarcerated persons; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people; and those displaced by natural disasters. It also explores key arenas in which legal scholars, policy practitioners and grassroots activists are challenging multiple divides between 'public' and 'private' spheres (for example, in connection with children's rights and domestic violence) and between 'public' and 'private' sectors (specifically, in relation to healthcare and business and human rights).

"This volume brings together a stellar array of interdisciplinary thinkers and leaders to analyze the past, present and future of human rights frameworks in the United States. The result is a wide-ranging status report that outlines successes as well as failures and points toward next steps for those interested in moving beyond exceptionalism to a nuanced and active engagement with human rights. There is much to learn from these thought-provoking contributions, from the role of human rights in post-Katrina politics to the legal status of human rights in the United States to the significance of human rights frames for marginalized populations. It is rare that a single collection provides so many light-bulb moments!"
- Martha F. Davis
Associate Dean and Professor of Law
Northeastern University School of Law
Co-editor, Bringing Human Rights Home

"The chapters in this volume exhibit a uniformly high quality, and, moreover, span a wide spectrum of human rights....The editors of this volume make and clarify the important link between progressivism and human rights."
-The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare