Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement. By Katherine M. Marino. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.

Signs ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 549-551
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Jay Friedman
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier

This chapter details how the rise of the international human rights movement as a significant force in world affairs cannot be separated from the Cold War context in which it took place. The Cold War magnified the importance of citizen efforts to promote rights and, though many of those involved in the movement during the Cold War era took significant risks and suffered severe consequences, it was the circumstances of the East–West conflict that attracted many of them to the cause in the first place. Rights activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain became aware that calling attention to abuses of rights by their own governments carried extra weight in an era when a global competition was underway for people's hearts and minds.


Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier

This chapter focuses on the major goal of the international human rights movement has been in securing accountability for grave abuses. It talks about “truth commissions” in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, several countries of Asia, Morocco, and Canada, which deals with abuses against the country's indigenous population. It also highlights the establishment of several international criminal tribunals in order to prosecute and punish those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The chapter explores accountability, which has become a central concern of the international human rights movement for the recognition or official acknowledgment of the suffering of victims of human rights abuses. It also analyzes the purpose of deniability, which made it possible for military regimes in that commit abuses to maintain a facadeof legality.


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