Sovereign Emergencies
Latin America and the Making of Global Human Rights Politics
Part of Human Rights in History
- Author: Patrick William Kelly, Northwestern University, Illinois
- Date Published: May 2018
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781316615119
Paperback
Other available formats:
Hardback, eBook
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available for inspection. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an inspection copy. To register your interest please contact asiamktg@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
-
The concern over rising state violence, above all in Latin America, triggered an unprecedented turn to a global politics of human rights in the 1970s. Patrick William Kelly argues that Latin America played the most pivotal role in these sweeping changes, for it was both the target of human rights advocacy and the site of a series of significant developments for regional and global human rights politics. Drawing on case studies of Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, Kelly examines the crystallization of new understandings of sovereignty and social activism based on individual human rights. Activists and politicians articulated a new practice of human rights that blurred the borders of the nation-state to endow an individual with a set of rights protected by international law. Yet the rights revolution came at a cost: the Marxist critique of US imperialism and global capitalism was slowly supplanted by the minimalist plea not to be tortured.
Read more- Draws on archival research and oral interviews spanning ten countries in Latin America, Europe, the United States, and Australia
- Offers a highly interdisciplinary lens, drawing on political science, anthropology, law, and sociology to paint a broad historical canvas
- Historicizes the birth of global human rights politics with a minimalist focus on civil and politics rights in the 1970s
Reviews & endorsements
'In this lucid, informed, and clear account, Kelly shows how a succession of regimes in the 1960s, 70s and 80s chose the human body as their staging ground for ideological warfare, and how out of these nightmares the defense of what came to be known as human rights was born. An indispensable history of modern Latin America.' Alma Guillermoprieto, former journalist for The Guardian, the Washington Post, and The New York Times, and author of The Heart that Bleeds: Latin America Now
See more reviews'This book is an important contribution to the history of human rights discourse and activism from a transnational perspective that documents and analyzes an important process that took place in the 1970s regarding the way Latin American exiles and those concerned about the wave of repression in South America responded to reports of arrest, torture, and the disappearance of political activists.' James Green, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Professor of Modern Latin American History, Brown University, Rhode Island
'Finally, a careful and thoroughly researched study on the contributions of Latin America to the international human rights canon. The last few decades have greatly expanded the substance of what we consider rights, and incorporated the 'language of rights' into all areas of public policy. In that recent history, Latin American advocates, jurists and human rights defenders have created models that break barriers of cultural relativism and contribute to the universality of human dignity from the lessons of tragedy and triumph that are so eloquently described in these pages.' Juan E. Méndez, American University, Washington, DC, and Commissioner, International Commission of Jurists
'Patrick William Kelly's first book is an important contribution to the burgeoning literature on the human rights revolution of the 1970s … [It] offers insightful comments about the role of Latin American exiles in this revolution, includes fascinating digressions about testimonial truth, and, all in all, provides a successful model to those interested in writing empirically grounded transnational histories.' Alfonso Salgado, Journal of Contemporary History
'Sovereign Emergencies is a rich kaleidoscope that emphasizes the importance of writing histories that underscore plurality in the formation of the ideas and practices that animate international politics. In doing so, Kelly offers a new view of global politics as a process that does not occur top-down but in a multitude of directions that can be grasped only by portraying diverse encounters.' Jorge González-Jácome, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History
'Kelly has managed to write a convincing and detailed account not only about transnational human rights activism in the Americas and Western Europe, but has also made an important contribution to the still recent historiography on human rights more generally. The author has achieved this by pointing out the importance for detail, nuance, and clarity when dealing with the different aspects of human rights and its 'breakthrough' in the 1970s.' Philipp Kandler, Global Histories
'Sovereign Emergencies is a fantastic read. It foregrounds Latin America in the human rights revolution of the 1970s, offers insightful comments about the role of Latin American exiles in this revolution, includes fascinating digressions about testimonial truth, and, all in all, provides a successful model to those interested in writing empirically grounded transnational histories.' Alfonso Salgado, Journal of Contemporary History
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: May 2018
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781316615119
- length: 334 pages
- dimensions: 228 x 152 x 18 mm
- weight: 0.45kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
List of figures
Introduction
1. Torture in Brazil
2. The emergency in Chile
3. Transnational solidarity
4. Redefining sovereignty
5. The origins of American human rights activism
6. The global specter of Argentina's disappeared
7. Argentina and the inter-American system
Epilogue: the promise and limits of the human rights cascade
Index.
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email lecturers@cambridge.org
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×