Toward a New Moral World Order?

For many years, the interest of historians in the theme of human rights was limited to aspects linked with the history of ideas. Recently, however, there has been an increase in empirical studies suggesting that more questions must be asked regarding a viable historical concept of human rights, including their genesis and division into periods. This volume examines the development of human rights since the Second World War, against the background of the Cold War, decolonisation and the political turning point of 1989/90. This reveals not only the diversity of the protagonists involved in developing the contents and concepts of human rights and contributing to their advancement, but also how malleable this instrument was, and indeed still remains.

With contributions and commentaries by David Abraham, Rafael Biermann, Marco Duranti, Jan Eckel, Norbert Frei, Marc Frey, Philipp Gassert, Constantin Goschler, Atina Grossmann, Kathrin Kollmeier, Daniel Levy, Ulrike Lindner, Regula Ludi, Daniel Maul, Anja Mihr, Mary Nolan, Dominik Rigoll, Miriam Rürup, Klaus Scharioth, Shimon Stein, Stefan Troebst, Ernst Wawra, Annette Weinke, Eric Weitz and Lora Wildenthal.

A historisation of human rights.

The Editors
Norbert Frei, born in 1955, teaches recent and contemporary history at the University of Jena and is head of the »Jena Center, 20th Century History«.
Annette Weinke, born in 1963, is an assistant at the Department of Recent and Contemporary History at the University of Jena.