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

This review essay explores the possibility of a “historical sociology” of human rights. Drawing on Christopher Roberts’ The Contentious History of the International Bill of Human Rights, which puts political conflict at the heart of the human rights concept, and Jay Winter & Antoine Prost’s biographical study of one of the framers of the core human rights instruments, René Cassin and Human Rights: From the Great War to the Universal Declaration, the essay argues for the centrality of violence to any comprehensive explanation of the place held by human rights in the post-World War II era.