This book critically examines the contemporary discourses on the nature of 'human rights', their histories, the myths that are embedded in them, and contributes an alternative reading of those histories by placing the concerns and interests of the 'people in struggle and communities of resistance' at centre stage. The work analyses the significance of the UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and goes on to study the more contemporary issues such as women's struggle to feminize the
understanding and practice of human rights, the post-modernist critique of the universal idiom of human rights and, most pertinently for the current world scene, it analyzes the impact of globalization on the human rights movement. The volume includes a discussion on the proposed United Nations norms
regarding the human rights responsibilities of multinational corporations and other business entities.

This edition further addresses the diversity in labouring practices that relate to making, remaking, and unmaking of internationally agreed upon human rights norms and standards.