Preface

Summary

The challenge that economic globalisation as one of the 21st century's guiding paradigms implies for human rights is fundamental. While the scientific discourse on globalisation has intensified and an ever growing body of research in economic globalisation can be ascertained, key questions have up to now found no satisfying answers.

Economic Globalisation and Human Rights sets out to address this gap. Questions that delimitate the multifaceted impact of globalisation on the very conception of human rights, and on their future, include: How can human rights protect human dignity when economic globalisation has adverse impacts on local living conditions? To what extent and into which direction should human rights evolve in response to a global economy in which non-statal actors are decisive forces? In this collection leading scholars assess these and other questions. Using a multidisciplinary methodology the contributors aim at ensuring that, as economic globalisation intensifies, human rights take up the central position that they deserve as a global value system. Reflecting on issues ranging from the need for a global ethic to the localisation of human rights, from the role of human rights in the WTO and the World Bank to efforts to make international economic organisations more accountable and multinational corporations more socially responsible, the contributors show that economic globalisation cannot be an end in itself, but is shaped and enriched by the globalisation of human rights.