Human Rights and Anthropology

I. Niklas Hultin

The term human rights refers to a set of legal and normative standards according to which all humans are ordained with certain rights irrespective of the cultural or social circumstances of their lives. Although the concept has considerable historical antecedents, modern human rights can be said to have been inaugurated with the establishment of the United Nations (UN) after World War II and that organization's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since then, the number of organizations, treaties, and resolutions dedicated to human rights has multiplied dramatically. The intersections between anthropology and human rights are numerous due to the increasingly vast range of issues covered under the rubric of human rights and the variety of topics addressed by anthropologists. The relationship between human rights and anthropology is made even more complex by the coexistence of a strong undercurrent of a commitment to social justice and skepticism of human ...

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