The book interrogates the claim that human rights are axiomatic with liberal freedom. Revisiting human rights interventions on gender, and on behalf of sexual and religious minorities, the author exposes how such interventions have advanced neo-liberal agendas and new forms of imperialism, and enabled a carceral politics rather than produced freedom for their constituencies. Focusing on campaigns for same sex marriage, ending violence against women and the Islamic veil bans, and how these emerge as forms of governance that operate through normative prescriptions, the book will be of interest to the sociological community. The analysis lays bare how human rights emerge as a project of containment and unfreedom. The author argues that the futurity of human rights rests in transformative engagement with non-liberal pursuits of freedom.

Author
Ratna Kapur, Queen Mary University of London

Readers
Brenda Cossman, Faculty of Law, Univesity of Toronto
Ben Golder, UNSW
Vanja Hamzić, SOAS University of London
Vasuki Nesiah, The Gallatin School, New York University