The Challenge of Human Rights traces the history of human rights theory from classical antiquity through the enlightenment to the modern human rights movement, and analyses the significance of human rights in today’s increasingly globalized world.


Provides an engaging study of the origin and the philosophical and political development of human rights discourse.

Offers an original defence of human rights.

Explores the significance of human rights in the context of increasing globalisation.

Confronts the major objections to human rights, including the charge of western ethical imperialism and cultural relativism.




Argues that human rights logically culminate in an ethical cosmopolitanism to reflect the moral unity of the human race.