January 9, 2012 | Christine Buckley, CLAS Today

U.S. No Exception When it Comes to Human Rights

A new book by two UConn social scientists says the U.S. is slowly beginning to view issues at home through the lens of human rights.

The cover of a new book by Shareen Hertel and Kathy Libal, 'Human Rights in the United States,' bears a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous 'Four Freedoms' Speech.

The cover of a new book by Shareen Hertel and Kathy Libal, 'Human Rights in the United States,' bears a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous 'Four Freedoms' Speech.

Shareen Hertel, associate professor of political science, left, and Kathy Libal, assistant professor of social work. (Christine Buckley/UConn Photo)
Shareen Hertel, associate professor of political science, left, and Kathy Libal, assistant professor of social work. (Christine Buckley/UConn Photo)

While the United States has promoted involvement in human rights issues across the globe since the 1940s, two UConn social scientists claim that in many areas, the U.S. has resisted applying these standards at home or aligning foreign policy with these standards abroad.

A new book co-edited by Shareen Hertel and Kathryn Libal, Human Rights in the United States: Beyond Exceptionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2011), puts forward a history of these controversies and shows that slowly, U.S. organizations are beginning to view issues at home through the lens of human rights.

“There are grassroots and non-governmental organizations using the human rights framework when our own legal system is not,” says Hertel, an associate professor of political science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Covering 300 years up to the present, the book outlines the history of the concept of human rights in the U.S. The notion of exceptionalism stems from the idea that although the U.S. advocates abroad for such human rights as the right to food, shelter, or decent wages, it also assumes that at home, we’ve exceeded these laws, so they don’t apply to us. This assumption, says Hertel, is vastly untrue.

“We’re trying to get people to rethink what’s accepted,” says Hertel, who also received a 2011 UConn grant for her work on law, social protest, and the right to food in India. “In the U.S., there’s a profound lack of understanding of the United Nations system. These laws are not just about preventing discrimination, but about ensuring adequacy.”

Each contributed chapter addresses a particular case of human rights advocacy in the U.S., such as the rights of the disabled, indigenous peoples, single-mother families, people in prison, the gay community, and those displaced by natural disasters, in particular Hurricane Katrina.

These examples are particularly needed in the human rights curriculum, says Hertel, because nearly all college courses in human rights – UConn included – have focused on other countries.

Says co-editor Libal, an assistant professor of community organization in the School of Social Work, “It’s a hopeful book in the end. If we empower people with this knowledge, they will feel compelled to make a difference.”