Human Rights and Private Wrongs: Constructing Global Civil Society

What do Swiss bankers, Romanian orphans, and Brazilian scientists have in common? All are participants in global struggles over the governance of transnational institutions whose policies affect the ability of millions to secure their fundamental rights. This compelling new book breaks new ground by considering a series of fascinating issues that are normally ignored by human rights specialists because they are too private to consider as policy issues: children’s labor migration, refugee policy toward unaccompanied minors, financial matters of investor and business responsibility, and complex questions involving access to the benefits of pharmaceutical research, transnational organ trafficking, and the control over genetic research. These issues raise extremely sensitive and increasingly significant questions about both rights and the division of responsibility between state and society for the construction of norms of regulation. Human Rights and Private Wrongs is ambitious in scope, raising issues that have considerable current policy relevance, and exploring the nature of politics in a variety of transnational settings. Broad, controversial, and accessible, this book will be of interest to everyone concerned with the role of civil society, of global social forces, and of the extension of the boundaries of the field of human rights.