The introduction highlights the attraction of the idea of human rights. It affords insight into the development of the new international standards, considers the philosophical foundations, presents matters of cross-cultural interpretation, and broaches the subject of controversies. The controversies reveal the underlying tension between cultural relativism and universalism. By turning to difficult challenges, it is possible to come to grips with shared values or cross-cultural universals. The powerful idea of human rights appeals because of the peremptory norms, known as ius cogens, e.g., the rights against slavery and genocide.

Political regimes can be seen as collections of opportunities and threats to social movements. They both facilitate and repress collective actors and channel contention into forms that they can manage. Movements attempt to use channels of opportunity and avoid repression to advance their goals.

Movements seek policy reforms but also seek the transformation of identities and the success of their favorite forms of contention. Scholars have mainly focused on the first kind of success but are increasingly looking at identity change and emotion work. More work needs to be done on the influence of particular movements and waves of movement on the repertoire of contention.

The field of social movements and contentious politics has three audiences – students, scholars, and citizens. This chapter summarizes the findings of the book and offers suggestions for all three audiences.

This chapter discusses the theoretical controversies surrouding the death penalty, the status of the death penalty under international human rights law, the death penalty in the United States and China. It also explores other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishments including mass incarceration, life imprisonment, shackling, and solitary confinement.

This chapter traces the international environmental rights movement, discusses international environmental law, and analyzes the theoretical deveopment and policy practices of environmental protection and human rights. It then examines the issue of environmental justice including environmental racism. Topics such as pollution and human rights, climate change and human rights, and environmental refugees and human rights are also explored.

Many cultural traditions are, to the surprise of many, actually protected under human rights law. This chapter reviews the jurisprudence of cultural rights including dress codes, language policies, foodways, call to prayer, sacred sites, and others. Whether individuals whose traditions clash with the national law should be allowed to invoke a cultural defense is also considered.

The pace of change in Chinese society began to increase in the late Tang period. By early Song times (960–1276), advances in agriculture and industry were contributing to dizzying economic growth. The pace of migration south accelerated, and the Yangzi valley finally became as central to the Chinese economy and to Chinese culture as the Yellow River regions in the north. The civil service examination system came to dominate the lives of the elite, and Confucianism was reinvigorated. Despite these signs of vitality, the Song dynasty was never able to establish dominance of East Asia the way the Han and Tang dynasties had. Advances in Inner Asian statecraft meant Song had powerful northern neighbours that had to be treated as equals, not vassals. Limiting the military threat they posed became a major preoccupation of both the state and the intellectual elite. Success was only partial; in 1127 the Song lost most of north China to the Jurchen's state of Jin, thus dividing the Song into two periods, the Northern Song when the capital was at Kaifeng and the Southern Song when the capital was relocated to Hangzhou.

War and peace in a multistate context

During the chaotic century from 860 to 960 following the disintegration of the Tang dynasty, political and military power devolved to the local level. Any strongman able to organize defence against rebels and bandits could become a local warlord and declare himself king, and many of the kings of this period rose from very lowly beginnings; one had even been a merchant's slave.

In the south, no self-proclaimed king ever consolidated much more than the equivalent of a modern province or two, and historians generally refer to the regional states in the south as the ‘Ten Kingdoms’. Political fragmentation in the south did not impair the economy there; on the contrary, rulers of the regional states, eager to expand their tax bases, successfully promoted trade.

The effects of fragmentation were less benign in the north. Many of the regional warlords there were not Chinese but Shatuo Turks from the garrison armies. Both Chang’an and Luoyang had been ravaged by the wars of the late Tang period, and Kaifeng, located in Henan province near the Grand Canal, came to be viewed as the central city in north China.

This chapter first provides a brief historical overview of the international indigenous rights movement. It then discusses the definitions of “indigenous peoples”. It also analyzes the content of “indigenous rights,” focusing on the issues of right to self-determination and economic, social and cultural rights, followed by an examination of the role of the UN and indigenous NGOs in protecting and promoting indigenous rights.