Acknowledgments ; 1. Field Missions ; Human Rights as Moral Concepts ; Human Rights as Political Concepts ; Human Rights as Legal Concepts ; The Plan of the Book ; 2. Sovereignty and Structure ; Sovereignty and its Exercise ; Between the National and International ; Sovereignty and its Distribution ; 3. Human Rights: Three Generations or One? ; Generations as Chronological Categories ; Generations as Analytical Categories ; Civil and Political Rights as Monitors of Sovereignty's Exercise ; Social and Economic Rights as Monitors of Sovereignty's Exercise ; 4. International Law at Work ; Labor Rights as Instrumental Rights ; Labor Rights as Universal Rights ; Labor Rights and the Structure of International Law ; 5. The Ambiguous Appeal of Minority Rights ; The Moral Ambiguities of Minority Rights ; The Political Ambiguities of Minority Rights ; The Interdependence of Sovereignty and Minority Protection ; 6. International Indigenous Recognition ; Indigenous Territories and the Acquisition of Sovereignty ; Indigenous Recognition and the International Labour Organization ; Indigenous Recognition and the United Nations ; The Purpose of International Indigenous Rights ; 7. Self-Determination in Three Movements ; Self-Determination and the Legality of Colonialism ; The Many Paradoxes of Self-Determination ; Bridging International Law and Distributive Justice ; 8. Global Poverty and the Right to Development ; The Emergence of the Right ; Implementing the Right ; From Global Poverty to International Law ; The Right to Development and the Rise and Fall of Colonialism ; Bibliography ; Index

"Macklem offers his readers a well-articulated argument that advances discourse on the subject. He also gives them a fascinating, in-depth review of the origination of workers' rights, minority and indigenous rights, the right of self-determination and the right to development, which supports his approach." -- Sarah Frost, Israel Law Review "The lSovereignty of Human Rights is a must-read for anyone interested in international human rights law and global justice. Professor Macklem presents a highly original theory of human rights as normative legal concepts, focused on their role in the international legal system. The legal conception he offers is analytically distinct from both traditional moral and recent political conceptions. Given the expansion of international human rights law since the 1970s, Macklem's focus on their function as legal norms is illuminating and important...In short, Macklem's book forces us to rethink and revise our understanding of the effects of the ascription of international legal sovereign authority to certain political communities deemed states, and to revise our view of what constitutes a human right in the international system accordingly." --Jean L. Cohen, Nell and Herbert Singer Professor of Political Theory and Contemporary Civilization, Columbia University "This densely argued, broad-based inquiry justifies human rights from several perspectives. Macklem (Univ. of Toronto, Canada) focuses on the tension between sovereign powers vested in states and human rights belonging to individuals and groups." --C.E. Welch, University of Buffalo, lChoice "Professor Macklem's book makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature on the role of international human rights law in the international legal order... [his] argument is highly original." - Anna John, Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (ZaöRV)

Selling point: Advances a legal theory of international human rights that defines their nature and purpose in relation to the structure and operation of international law Selling point: Argues that the mission of international human rights law is to mitigate the adverse effects of how international law deploys sovereignty Selling point: Demonstrates that human rights traditionally thought to lie at the margins of international human rights law are central to the normative architecture of the field Selling point: Sets out the thesis in theory, with six applications to specific human rights issues

Patrick Macklem is the William C. Graham Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is a recurring Visiting Professor at Central European University. In 2006-2007, he was a Senior Global Research Fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law. In 2007-2008, he was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on international human rights law, constitutional law, and indigenous peoples and the law including From Recognition to Reconciliation: Essays on the Constitutional Entrenchment of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, and Indigenous Difference and the Constitution of Canada (2001) (awarded the Canadian Political Science Donald Smiley Award for the best book in 2001 on Canadian government and policy; and the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences 2002 Harold Innis Prize by for the best English-language book in the social sciences).

Selling point: Advances a legal theory of international human rights that defines their nature and purpose in relation to the structure and operation of international law Selling point: Argues that the mission of international human rights law is to mitigate the adverse effects of how international law deploys sovereignty Selling point: Demonstrates that human rights traditionally thought to lie at the margins of international human rights law are central to the normative architecture of the field Selling point: Sets out the thesis in theory, with six applications to specific human rights issues