Judith Blau

There is growing recognition around the globe that people's fundamental human rights are being imperiled in a world economy that is being driven by multinationals, investors, and banks. The 'race to the bottom' and insatiable greed has intensified poverty and economic inequalities, fueled migration, and rapidly accelerated environmental degradation. The fates of all nations are interdependent and even though the U.S. is the prime driver of the new economy, Americans have likewise experienced declines over the past decades. Blau and Moncada outline the fundamental human rights that all people are entitled to and the important role that nations have in upholding these rights. Americans find it somewhat difficult to accept the basic premise of human rights because liberalism, as a social, political, and economic ethos powerfully undercuts the premise of human rights. American liberalism highlights the efficacy of individual achievement and individual autonomy, thereby promoting the idea that people have no rights to security. . Human rights, in contrast to the liberal ethos, asserts that all humans have inalienable rights, including rights to a job, housing, social security, education, and a cultural, racial or ethnic identity. Under the conditions of a turbulent global economy, human rights need to be granted the highest standing. The authors consider global capitalism, as well as the role of the global media, and the problematic relationship between the state and society in America. In the final chapter, we review the many currents of transformative movements that are promoting a more equitable, fairer, and more egalitarian world.

Climate Chaos provides readers the latest consensus among international scientists on the cascading impacts of climate change and the tipping points that today threaten to irreversibly destroy the delicate balance of the Earth’s ecosystems. The book argues that deregulation and an expansion of fossil fuel extraction have already tipped the planet towards a climate that is out of control. This crisis will cause massive human suffering when extreme weather, pollution and disease lead to displacement, food and water shortages, war, and possibly species extinction. The repression of science creates an existential crisis for humanity that has reached crisis proportions in the twentieth-first century. The scale of the crisis has prompted a call for geoengineering, large interventions into the climate by technological innovation. However, the history of colonialism and slavery make the technological and monetary elites untrustworthy to solve this humanitarian and planetary crisis. While the elites have always cast certain groups of humanity as expendable, the climate crisis makes a true humanist and egalitarian movement based in human rights and dignity not only aspirational but also existentially mandatory. The crisis demands that we remake the world into a more just and safe place for all the world’s people.

The author is a sociologist who has written extensively on human rights and recently on climate change. In her new book she develops the idea that protecting everyone’s human rights and slowing planetary warming are the same goals. It is now clear that the leader of the richest, most powerful country in the world – United States President Donald J. Trump - has set the trigger of destruction by exempting the United States from the international treaty that aims to give the entire planet some reprieve from warming. That is, all countries of the world have entered into an agreement to end reliance on fossil fuels, except the United States, which withdrew at the outset of the Trump Administration. Regardless of the US position in the future, the country’s emissions are so very extremely high they will continue to wreck havoc on the entire world. While Blau maintains that President Trump has committed a crime against Humanity, even beyond his tenure the book sets the stage for a human rights approach to climate change for the future.

The author is a sociologist who has written extensively on human rights and recently on climate change. In her new book she develops the idea that protecting everyone’s human rights and slowing planetary warming are the same goals. It is now clear that the leader of the richest, most powerful country in the world – United States President Donald J. Trump - has set the trigger of destruction by exempting the United States from the international treaty that aims to give the entire planet some reprieve from warming. That is, all countries of the world have entered into an agreement to end reliance on fossil fuels, except the United States, which withdrew at the outset of the Trump Administration. Regardless of the US position in the future, the country’s emissions are so very extremely high they will continue to wreck havoc on the entire world. While Blau maintains that President Trump has committed a crime against Humanity, even beyond his tenure the book sets the stage for a human rights approach to climate change for the future.

This book discusses the immediate and severe threat posed by global climate change and the various obstacles that stand in the way of action. Judith Blau presents scientific evidence relevant to The Paris Agreement (COP-21): an international treaty that promises to strengthen the global response to climate change. As she reckons with the dangers of catastrophic planetary heating, Blau discusses the clash between the deeply ingrained American tradition of individualism and the collective action and acknowledgement of intertwined fate needed to address climate change. She acknowledges that America’s capitalist bent stands in contrast to the idea of the “commons”—a concept that we need to embrace if climate change is to be mitigated. The volume also explains the foundations of international human rights standards as they relate to climate change. Drawing from guiding principles of human rights and equality, the book concludes hopefully—suggesting that the people of the world canmeet the challenge posed by climate change by at once acknowledging shared humanity and celebrating difference.

Human Rights: A Primer breaks new ground in clarifying for undergraduates the international significance of human rights. This new edition highlights current and recent developments, using themes familiar to undergraduates. For example, Americans are increasingly aware of the growing disparities in economic well-being. It is indeed a crisis that is global and national. Because this book focuses on globalization and human rights as intertwined, readers will gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of neoliberal capitalism in undermining human rights (dignity, security, and well-being). Major works by Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz are discussed, along with recent upheavals in Greece, and the rising tide of refugees in Europe and North America. Furthermore, powerful forces that will increasingly test global solidarity and the future of the planet relate to the extent that countries and peoples cooperate in combating global warming and promoting sustainable development goals (SDGs). Key dates for both these issues occurred in the second half of 2015 – the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September and the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) in December. The significance of both conferences for human rights is discussed in this new edition.

Human Rights: A Primer breaks new ground in clarifying for undergraduates the international significance of human rights. This new edition highlights current and recent developments, using themes familiar to undergraduates. For example, Americans are increasingly aware of the growing disparities in economic well-being. It is indeed a crisis that is global and national. Because this book focuses on globalization and human rights as intertwined, readers will gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of neoliberal capitalism in undermining human rights (dignity, security, and well-being). Major works by Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz are discussed, along with recent upheavals in Greece, and the rising tide of refugees in Europe and North America. Furthermore, powerful forces that will increasingly test global solidarity and the future of the planet relate to the extent that countries and peoples cooperate in combating global warming and promoting sustainable development goals (SDGs). Key dates for both these issues occurred in the second half of 2015 – the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September and the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) in December. The significance of both conferences for human rights is discussed in this new edition.

Much has been written about growing global disparities in wealth and resources, how global capitalism has adversely affected human populations and the environment, and the dangers that a unipolar world order poses to peace and global pluralism. After summarizing the evidence for these arguments, the authors develop two main themes: first, that there is a growing transformative peoples' movement that challenges global capitalism and the imperial superpower; and, second, there is an extraordinary worldwide shift underway in human consciousness that accompanies practical global interdependencies and connectedness. The authors provide evidence for an emerging foundation of what philosopher Peter Singer describes as a 'one-world ethic,' and they show how this ethic is closely connected with what is called the 'human rights revolution.' They compare the western, liberal conception of freedom with conceptions of freedom found in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Amartya Sen, and draw from Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition to clarify that freedom has both collective and individual dimensions. They build on these foundations to address the following topics: positive human rights, collective goods, cosmopolitanism, social and cultural pluralism, and they pose alternatives to capitalism and liberal democracy. The authors work in the tradition of critical social science, but go beyond that to encourage readers to engage in emancipatory projects and utopian thinking. The worlds' peoples face too many terrifying prospects not to engage such projects and thinking.

Much has been written about growing global disparities in wealth and resources, how global capitalism has adversely affected human populations and the environment, and the dangers that a unipolar world order poses to peace and global pluralism. After summarizing the evidence for these arguments, the authors develop two main themes: first, that there is a growing transformative peoples' movement that challenges global capitalism and the imperial superpower; and, second, there is an extraordinary worldwide shift underway in human consciousness that accompanies practical global interdependencies and connectedness. The authors provide evidence for an emerging foundation of what philosopher Peter Singer describes as a "one-world ethic," and they show how this ethic is closely connected with what is called the "human rights revolution." They compare the western, liberal conception of freedom with conceptions of freedom found in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Amartya Sen, and draw from Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition to clarify that freedom has both collective and individual dimensions. They build on these foundations to address the following topics: positive human rights, collective goods, cosmopolitanism, social and cultural pluralism, and they pose alternatives to capitalism and liberal democracy. The authors work in the tradition of critical social science, but go beyond that to encourage readers to engage in emancipatory projects and utopian thinking. The worlds' peoples face too many terrifying prospects not to engage such projects and thinking.

Justice in the U.S. is a sequel to Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision, and the second in a trilogy on human rights. The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution explicitly clarifies the personal political and civil rights of persons, and by court interpretation, the rights of corporations. Yet in the twentieth century, following World War II, most world leaders reached the conclusion that political and civil rights were not sufficient and they had to be supplemented with additional rights that would protect their citizens and create more robust societies. By the end of the century, most countries had amended their constitutions to include many other rights, notably those pertaining to social security, health care, housing, decent jobs, women, minorities, cultural and language rights, and environmental protections. This amounted to nothing less than a worldwide constitutional revolution, but it has gone largely unnoticed in the United States. In this volume, the authors compare the constitutional provisions of different nation-states and summarize some of the relevant United Nations' human rights declarations and treaties. To encourage US citizens to think critically about their Constitution in light of the constitutions of other states, the authors present a draft revision of the U.S. Constitution. Of course, revision of the Constitution must be a comprehensively a democratic process, and the authors wish to show how this process might begin.