Over the past two years, the field of international human rights has emerged from obscurity to prominence. Indicators of the prominence are many: the fact that social science and humanities (as well as legal) journals are increasingly publishing serious and scholarly research on human rights and that more and more scholars are engaqed in such research on a aystematic basis; the fact that universities, professional schools, and even high schools and junior colleges are developing new teaching courses and materials for the field; the large number of conferences being held across the country and the increasing number of human rights panels at professional meetings; and, of course, the increasing attention given to international human rights problems in the national press.