Introduction

The Handbook of Human Rights is the product of several years of collaboration among some sixty-six authors who agreed to write original essays on topics within the fi eld of human rights, broadly defi ned. The distinguishing characteristic of the Handbook is its theoretical, empirical, and epistemological pluralism. It represents an effort to reconfi gure and redefi ne the study of human rights in the twenty-fi rst century by expanding signifi cantly the range and scope of what falls under the rubric of “human rights.” The present effort is radical, in an intellectual sense, since it breaks from a number of traditional approaches to the study of human rights.