The temper of the times-whether the cause is President Carter's crusade, the 30th anniversary of the Universal Declaration, or something else-has loosed a flood of printer's ink on the subject of human rights. Glaser and Possony have produced an encyclopedic work full of data on all the ways in which wars, ideologies and politics have violated the rights of groups and individuals. Joyce's book, more modest in size but also broad in outlook, focuses on the efforts that have been made through the United Nations and the European Community for the international protection of human rights. Henkin, in a series of distinguished lectures, combines a legal with a political and a humanist approach in treating both the constitutional and the international aspects. The Said volume is a collection of brief but often good essays. In the volume by the British Foreign Secretary, which is a real book and not just a collection of speeches, David Owen puts human rights in the context of British policy, or vice versa, and in passing gives his views on détente, Eurocommunism and other matters. It is striking that virtually every one of these authors believes that human rights have now achieved a recognition (in law and declared policy if not in practice) they never had before.
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