Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century

Authors

Brett J. Kyle

Abstract

In Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century, Kathryn Sikkink delivers a timely defense of the promise and progress of human rights movements, ideas, and institutions. Amid a seemingly ever-growing body of scholarship on the shortcomings of human rights, Sikkink contends that the human rights movement has helped to improve the human condition over the long term. As the title promises, there is much we should regard as progress in human rights and reason to be hopeful for the future. Sikkink was motivated to write this book for human rights activists “who say they have lost hope” (6) as well as for a general audience, especially those in the United States who are concerned about the country’s policy turns that put human rights in danger at home and abroad. Effectively speaking to three audiences—activists, scholars, and the general public—the author takes on academic critiques of human rights and frames her responses in a fashion that reinforces her message of hope: We can make a difference because we have made a difference.

Recommended Citation

Kyle, Brett J. (2018) "Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century," International Dialogue: Vol. 8, Article 14.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32873/uno.dc.ID.8.1.1160
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/id-journal/vol8/iss1/14