LibGuides: Human Rights: Books & eBooks

On this page, you will find:

Guidance to accessing both print and electronic books.
Key texts for Human Rights
Our latest stock of new books for Human Rights

Books and eBooks

Photo credit: 'Rare Book' by The Wolf Law Library via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Most print books relevant to Law can be found in Collegiate Library.

To find details of the exact location and availability of books, both print and electronic, please use Library Search. The title link for Books will take you to the full record with details of all copies. For eBooks, use the Full Text online link.

Some relevant shelfmarks

The catalogue record for each book includes a shelfmark that shows exactly where to find it in the sequence on the shelves. Books are firstly filed in subject number order - lowest numbers first.

Human rights law

341.48

Using eBooks

The Library aims to have both eBook and print versions of books as we know both formats are important especially when studying away from the University. Unfortunately, publishers do not always offer an eBook in a format suitable for library use, or it is not available at the time we order the print version.

How to find eBooks

Go to Library Online.
Search for your keywords in Library Search e.g. food tourism.
To the left of your search results click on Books / eBooks and Online.
Choose a book and follow the link(s) available under Find online. The links will either say View online at: or the name of an eBook provider.

Reading eBooks

How you can use an eBook depends on terms and conditions set by the publisher. In most cases you will be able to choose between reading online and downloading the eBook for a limited period to your own device. When downloaded eBooks expire you can download them again.

Most eBooks can be read by more than one reader at a time but sometimes you may have to wait if another reader is using the book. You can search within individual eBooks, add notes and print or copy a limited number of pages from most eBooks.

Further help

If you need further help, please take a look at the Library Help guide: eBooks section or get in contact. You can find a link to the Library Help guide below.

If a resource is not available in the Library, you can request it using Document Supply Services.

Key Texts

Climate Change Justice and Human Rights: An African Perspective by Ademola Oluborode Jegede and Oluwatoyin Adejonwo
Publication Date: 2023
Populations in Africa are vulnerable to both the direct and indirect adverse effects of climate change that are of human rights significance. The urgency for states in Africa to implement climate interventions while they face developmental challenges, however, raises questions of 'justice' or 'fairness' between the developed and the developing states. Consequently, interrogating how the human rights paradigm may respond to negative implications of climate change and its 'fairness' is important as states continue to engage with the climate change standard setting. This edited volume critically interrogates human rights paradigm as an intervention to secure climate change justice for vulnerable populations; analyses regional protection against human rights consequences of climate change; and assesses emerging interventions based on domestic regulatory frameworks on climate change in selected states in Africa.
Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law, 3rd Edition by David B. Oppenheimer; Sheila R. Foster; Sora Y. Han; Richard T. Ford
Call Number: 342.730873 OPP
ISBN: 9781788979221
Publication Date: 2020-02-28
This revised and updated casebook comprehensively compares the U.S. legal approach to problems of inequality and discrimination with the approaches of a variety of other legal systems around the world, including those in Europe, South Africa, China, Colombia, India and Brazil. This book provides an introduction to theories of equality and sources of equality law, and examines inequality and discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity, religion and disability.
Comparative Human Rights Law by Sandra Fredman
Call Number: 341.48 FR
ISBN: 9780199689415
Publication Date: 2019-01-15
Courts in different jurisdictions face similar human rights questions. Does the death penalty breach human rights? Does freedom of speech include racist speech? Is there a right to health? This book uses the prism of comparative law to examine the fascinating ways in which these difficult questions are decided. On the one hand, the shared language of human rights suggests that there should be similar solutions to comparable problems. On the other hand, there are important differences. Constitutional texts are worded differently; courts have differing relationships with the legislature; and there are divergences in socio-economic development, politics, and history. Nevertheless, there is a growing transnational conversation between courts, with cases in one jurisdiction being cited in others.
Discrimination Law by Sandra Fredman FBA KC
ISBN: 9780198859277
Publication Date: 2023-03-22
This book is a challenging, thought-provoking yet highly accessible introduction to discrimination law. It takes a thematic approach, illuminating the major issues in discrimination law, while imparting an in-depth understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of legal responses to complex social problems of inequality. This is enhanced by the comparative approach. By considering equality law in the UK, US, India, Canada, and South Africa, as well as the European Union and under the European Convention on Human Rights, the book exposes common problems across different jurisdictions and canvasses a variety of differing solutions.
Elgar Encyclopedia of Human Rights by Christina Binder (Editor); Manfred Nowak (Editor); Jane A. Hofbauer (Editor); Philipp Janig (Editor)
ISBN: 9781789903614
Publication Date: 2022-09-13
The Elgar Encyclopedia of Human Rights is the most comprehensive reference work in the field of international human rights protection. Topics range from substantive human rights to the relevant institutions, legal documents, conceptual and procedural issues of international law and a wide variety of thematic entries. The Encyclopedia has a distinct focus on international human rights law but at the same time is enriched by approaches from the broader social sciences, making it a truly unique and multi-disciplinary resource.
Environmental Human Rights and Climate Change by Bridget Lewis
ISBN: 9811319596
Publication Date: 2018-09-03
This book examines the current status of environmental human rights at the international, regional, and national levels and provides a critical analysis of possible future developments in this area, particularly in the context of a changing climate. It examines various conceptualisations of environmental human rights, including procedural rights relating to the environment, constitutional environmental rights, the environmental dimensions of existing human rights such as the rights to water, health, food, housing and life, and the notion of a stand-alone human right to a healthy environment.
The Human Rights Reader by Micheline R. Ishay (Editor)
Call Number: 323.09 IS
ISBN: 9780367634612
Publication Date: 2022-11-01
The third edition of The Human Rights Reader presents a variety of new primary documents and readings and elaborates the exploration of rights in the areas of race, gender, refugees, climate, Artificial Intelligence, drones and cyber security, and nationalism and Internationalism. In the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, it addresses human rights challenges reflected in and posed by global health inequities.
International Human Rights Law by Daniel Moeckli (Editor); Sangeeta Shah (Editor); Sandesh Sivakumaran (Editor); David Harris
Call Number: 341.48
ISBN: 9780198860112
Publication Date: 2022-10-31
Written by leading experts in the field, this compelling textbook explores the essentials of international human rights law, from foundational issues to substantive rights and systems of protection. A variety of perspectives bring this multifaceted and sometimes contentious subject to life, making International Human Rights Law the ideal companion for students of human rights.
International Human Rights Law and Practice by Ilias Bantekas; Lutz Oette
ISBN: 9781108711753
Publication Date: 2020-04-23
This unique textbook merges human rights law with its practice, from the courtroom to the battlefield. Human rights are analysed in their particular context, and the authors assess, among other things, the impact of international finance, the role of NGOs, and the protection of rights in times of emergency, including the challenges posed by counter-terrorism.
Intersectional Discrimination by Shreya Atrey
ISBN: 9780198848950
Publication Date: 2019-11-19
This book examines the concept of intersectional discrimination and why it has been difficult for jurisdictions around the world to redress it in discrimination law. 'Intersectionality' was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989. Thirty years since its conception, the term has become a buzzword in sociology, anthropology, feminist studies, psychology, literature, and politics. But it remains marginal in the discourse of discrimination law, where it was first conceived. Traversing its long and rich history of development, the book explains what intersectionality is as a theory and as a category of discrimination. It then explains what it takes for discrimination law to be reimagined from the perspective of intersectionality in reference to comparative laws in the US, UK, South Africa, Canada, India, and the jurisprudence of the European Courts (CJEU and ECtHR) and international human rights treaty bodies.
Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights by Markus Kaltenborn (Editor); Markus Krajewski (Editor); Heike Kuhn (Editor)
ISBN: 9783030304683
Publication Date: 2019-11-29
This open access book analyses the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows comparisons between the different approaches but also seeks to close gaps which would remain if only one perspective would be at the center of the discussions.
The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women by Marsha A. Freeman; Christine Chinkin; Beate Rudolf
ISBN: 9780199565061
Publication Date: 2012-03-24
This volume is the first comprehensive commentary on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol. The Convention is a key international human rights instrument and the only one exclusively addressed to women. It has been described as the United Nations' 'landmark treaty in the struggle for women's rights'. The Commentary describes the application of the Convention through the work of its monitoring body, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. It comprises detailed analyses of the Preamble and each article of the Convention and of the Optional Protocol. It also includes a separate chapter on the cross-cutting substantive issue of violence against women.
Women, Poverty, Equality by Meghan Campbell
ISBN: 9781509939480
Publication Date: 2020-06-25
The stark reality is that throughout the world, women disproportionately live in poverty. This indicates that gender can both cause and perpetuate poverty, but this is a complex and cross-cutting relationship.The full enjoyment of human rights is routinely denied to women who live in poverty. How can human rights respond and alleviate gender-based poverty? This monograph closely examines the potential of equality and non-discrimination at international law to redress gender-based poverty.

New Books

Emergency State: how we lost our freedoms in the pandemic and why it matters by Wagner, Adam
Call Number: 941.0862 WAG
ISBN: 9781847927460
Publication Date: 2022
0n 26 March 2020, a new law appeared. In eleven pages it locked down tens of millions of people, confined us to our homes, banned socialising, closed shops, gyms, pubs, places of worship. It restricted our freedoms more than any other law in history, justified by the rapid spread of a deadly new virus.

You may have expected such a law to be fiercely debated in Parliament. But it wasn't debated at all. A state of emergency was declared, meaning the law came into force the moment it was signed. The emergency was supposed to be short but lasted for 763 days, allowing ministers to bring in, by decree over 100 new laws restricting freedoms more than any in history - laws that were almost never debated, changed at a whim and increasingly confused the public. Meanwhile, behind the doors of Downing Street, officials and even the Prime Minister broke the very laws they had created.

This book tells the startling story of the state of emergency that brought about an Emergency State. A wake-up call from one of the UK's leading human rights barristers, Emergency State shows us why we must never take our rights for granted.
Welcome to Britain: Fixing Our Broken Immigration System by Colin Yeo
ISBN: 9781785905780
Publication Date: 29/06/2020
How would we treat Paddington Bear if he came to the UK today? Perhaps he would be a casualty of extortionate visa application fees; perhaps he would experience a cruel term of imprisonment in a detention centre; or perhaps his entire identity would be torn apart at the hands of a hostile environment that delights in the humiliation of its victims. Britain thinks of itself as a welcoming country, but the reality is very different. This is a system in which people born in Britain are told in uncompromising terms that they are not British, in which those who have lived their entire lives on these shores are threatened with deportation, and in which falling in love with anyone other than a British national can result in families being ripped apart. Now fully updated to include the Nationality and Borders Bill, in this vital and alarming book, campaigner and immigration barrister Colin Yeo tackles the subject with dexterity and rigour, offering a roadmap of where we should go from here as he exposes the injustice of an immigration system that is unforgiving, unfeeling and, ultimately, failing.
The Abortion Act 1967 by Sally Sheldon, Gayle Davis, Jane O'Neill, and Clare Parker
ISBN: 9781108753449
Publication Date: 17/11/2022
The Abortion Act 1967 may be the most contested law in UK history, sitting on a fault line between the shifting tectonic plates of a rapidly transforming society. While it has survived repeated calls for its reform, with its text barely altered for over five decades, women's experiences of accessing abortion services under it have evolved considerably. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, this book explores how the Abortion Act was given meaning by a diverse cast of actors including women seeking access to services, doctors and service providers, campaigners, judges, lawyers, and policy makers. By adopting an innovative biographical approach to the law, the book shows that the Abortion Act is a 'living law'. Using this historically grounded socio-legal approach, this enlightening book demonstrates how the Abortion Act both shaped and was shaped by a constantly changing society.

Multidisciplinary eBook collections

The Library has a range of eBook collections. You can search Library Search to find eBooks about many different subjects and that approach may be quicker than searching individual collections. You can also browse or search with the collections directly.

eBook Central
Authoritative eBooks in a range of subjects from the world's top publishers.

Use Ebook Central to quickly and easily find relevant ebooks and chapters; read online; search within the ebook; and highlight, take notes and bookmark pages in your online copy, stored on your bookshelf for you. You can also share your research with others, download eBooks and chapters to your laptop or mobile device, and more.
EBSCOHost
Databases ranging from general reference collections to subject-specific databases relating to art, business, communication, film and television, history, medicine, sport etc. which can be searched individually or collectively. The resources offer abstracts, full-text journal articles, news items, company reports, and peer-reviewed sources. Includes some full text.
OAPEN
OAPEN is a platform supporting open access publishing of peer reviewed books.
Taylor and Francis SHU eBook Collection
A collection of selected ebooks published by Taylor and Francis, who publish across a wide range of subjects and disciplines including humanities, social sciences, education, behavioural sciences, built environment and law. Filter to "Show content I have access to" to see books SHU subscribes to.
VLeBooks
This database contains all the VLE ebook titles that Sheffield Hallam have access to. This includes the Dawsonera ebook titles.
Oxford Very Short Introductions
Each volume provides an authoritative and engaging assessment of a concept, field, or body of work, drawing out the central ideas, themes, and approaches.
more...less...
Key titles to search for:
- Abolitionism
- American Immigration
- American Slavery
- Decolonization
- European Union Law
- Feminism
- Free Speech
- Habeas Corpus
- Human Rights
- International Law
- International Migration
- Law
- Racism
- Refugees
- The Civil Rights Movement