Reflections on Eric Weitz, A World Divided

Human rights is a hybrid field of scholarship – at a minimum part law, part history, part philosophy and part political science. This syncretic convergence of disciplinary approaches has generated a rich body of research on human rights topics that intersects with many foundational questions in the field of social science. These include how nations come into being, what defines social membership, who benefits from particular social arrangements, how is the notion of equality to be construed, which are the key elements of human well-being, how are just societies governed, what historical forces generate dramatic social upheavals? Over the last quarter of a century, students interested in these questions, and in the field of human rights more broadly, have had the benefit of careful investigations into many of these issues as they impinge on and intersect with the growing influence of notions of human rights in the public domain.