Today any serious book searching for the meaning of rights, natural rights, and human rights is welcome, but in “What’s Wrong with Rights?” Biggar seems preoccupied with a straw man—the claim that rights are absolute.

For years the international community has decried gross violations of human rights inside the prison camps. The recent expansion of the prison camp system, however, increases the need for the US government to take substantive actions to address human rights issues in North Korea.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ (UDHR) impact across the globe was beyond what Eleanor Roosevelt and its drafters could have imagined. As we look forward, the human rights agenda is in great need of reform and renewal. Perhaps a return to the spirit of 1948 and the wisdom of its original drafters can provide wisdom for the future.

In 1946 when the prospects for what would become the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) appeared dim, President Harry Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to a UN committee where she could promote universal human rights.

While Sisi has made some improvements, stating that Egypt has achieved some advanced level of religious freedom or pluralism is fantastical and premature.

A recent US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) report gives examples of China’s transgressions.

As the United States continues its political transition, many in the human rights advocacy community anxiously await tangible signs, beyond rhetoric, that the cause of international religious freedom will remain a policy priority for the Biden administration.

In this week’s episode, the editors discuss Mark Tooley’s conversation with Nigel Biggar, a Presbyterian’s look at nationalism, Mark Melton’s review of a book on the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and Reinhold Niebuhr’s call for Christians to feed and clothe the defeated Germans in 1946.

In Christian circles, there is the view that there’s something problematic about the very concept of a right as a property of an individual.