Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development

While disciplines such as law and history have now developed distinct subfields of human rights research, sociology only more recently started developing a clear research agenda with regard to human rights. The work reviewed in this article, sociologist Hans Joas’ book The Sacredness of the Person, is an important addition to the new sociological research into human rights. In this essay we outline the key thesis underlying the book, namely the social process of sacralization of human personhood and discusses it against advances in the sociology of human rights, notably the sociology of law, and recent historical scholarship on human rights.