A powerful and urgent explanation and vindication of our human rights and freedoms

Our human rights are endangered. After the devastation of World War Two the international community united to enshrine fundamental rights to refuge, health, education and living standards. They protected privacy, fair trials and free speech and outlawed torture, slavery and discrimination. Their goal was greater global justice, equality and peace. That settlement is now under attack from opponents on both left and right and populist and authoritarian movements worldwide. Simultaneously, we are threatened by war, inequality, new tech and climate catastrophe, crises human rights can help us address.

In this urgent, powerful book, Shami Chakrabarti, demonstrates why human rights matter and why we need to secure further rights to deal with challenges of the present and future. Outlining the historic national and international struggles for human rights, from ancient Babylon to the present day, Chakrabarti is an indispensable guide to the law and logic underpinning human dignity and universal freedoms. This book equips supporters in the battle of ideas and will encourage doubters to think again.

To believe in human rights is to believe in human beings. If they - and we - are to survive, these rights must be owned and understood by everyone.

"An ideal introduction to the subject of human rights ... Chakrabarti is excellent on the historical origins of her subject ... and shows how the idea of human rights can have a direct bearing on the problems of today, whether war, climate change, poverty or artificial intelligence. In Chakrabarti’s hands, the underlying values are what matter about human rights, forming a roadmap to civilised living at a time of change and crisis. I cannot offhand think of a better, more attractive introduction to the subject for those curious to know more about it than the occasional newspaper headline ... Chakrabarti has an enviable writing style, her fluency in print matching her bewitching speaking skills; many times I could hear her voice coming through the text ... pugilistic in her defence of human rights, Chakrabarti is a key high priest in this, the most important of our secular religions" - Irish Times

"A clear, impassioned case for human rights law… absorbing… For Chakrabarti the ECHR isn’t just a set of amalgamated legal safeguards but a source of “sheer poetic insight” into human nature… This is law essentially willing civilisation into action, and as with difficult music or the higher reaches of maths, there is a hidden beauty in it" - Observer