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School of Law scholar writes American textbook on human rights from an international perspective
Loyola press release - July 19, 2005
Jeanne Woods, the Henry F. Bonura, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans School of Law, has coauthored Human Rights and the Global Marketplace: Economic, Social, and Cultural Dimensions. Woods says the book may be the only American textbook that covers poverty, economic and social issues from a human rights international perspective.
The 930-page book is coauthored with Hope Lewis, professor of International Law at Northeastern University School of Law. It was released April 1 by Transnational Publishers.
Woods will use the book in the fall when she teaches law and poverty at Loyola. Lewis will use the book at Northeastern and professors at other law schools including
In 1998 Woods began compiling course material to teach the law and poverty class. She discovered that very few people were dealing with poverty from a human rights perspective. She recalled there were “no books on social or economic rights. It’s a subject covered in
“I wanted to look at the impact of globalization on third world countries and people of color,” she said. Woods turned to Lewis because of her extensive background in women’s rights, another vital issue explored in the book.
Woods outlines several reasons why the book is unique:
* It’s a casebook which includes all major cases in the world on this issue, collecting jurisprudence on international human rights issues. Cases are printed in the book, not just referred to;
* Approaches human rights from the perspective of globalization. How human rights are defined, or redefine human rights as rights that humans need fundamentally. How do these rights interact with those rights we think are the most important rights?
* Emphasis on issues that affect people of color, indigenous people or Native Americans in
“In the course of putting this book together, we really see how they are interrelated,” Wood said. “It blurs those artificial lines. These are all human rights.”