Human Rights in Africa

This powerful volume challenges the conventional view that the concept of human rights is peculiar to the West and, therefore, inherently alien to the non-Western traditions of third world countries.

This book demonstrates that there is a contextual legitimacy for the concept of human rights.

Virginia A. Leary and Jack Donnelly discuss the Western cultural origins of international human rights; David Little, Bassam Tibi, and Ann Elizabeth Mayer explore Christian and Islamic perspectives on human rights; Rhoda E.

Howard, Claude E. Welch, Jr., and James C. N. Paul examine human rights in the context of the African nation-state; Kwasi Wiredu, James Silk, and Francis M.

Deng offer African cultural perspectives; and Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im and Richard D.

Schwartz discuss prospects for a cross-cultural approach to human rights.