This book examines the contribution social theory can make to understanding different human rights which operate in a variety of settings. Including an introduction to the theoretical issues raised by the study of rights, it covers a range of individual and collective rights, illuminating the relationship between social theory and human rights.

Lydia Morris is Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK.

1. Understanding Torture: the Strengths and the Limits of Social Theory
2. Civil and Political Rights and the Human Condition
3. The Community of Rights: Membership, Rights and Recognition
4. Human Rights as Trans-national Rights: Migration and Asylum
5. The Culture of Rights, and Rights to Culture
6. The Rights of Distant Others.