HUQUQ Bookreview

Review of books

Book Review: When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine

Editorial Team HUQUQ Bookreview, International humanitarian Law Apartheid and Segregation, Genocide, Inter, Sovereignty 0

The literature on Palestine has expanded dramatically since October 2023, yet relatively few works combine legal analysis, personal testimony, and human rights advocacy in a single narrative. Francesca Albanese’s When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine seeks precisely this synthesis. Written by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the book is both a human rights testimony and a moral appeal, documenting Palestinian experiences through stories of displacement, childhood, loss, and resistance while simultaneously interrogating the international legal order that has failed to protect civilian populations. Structured around ten personal narratives and encounters, Albanese’s work departs from conventional legal scholarship. Rather than presenting a detached analysis of international law, she places lived experience at the center of her account. The book’s title reflects its principal concern: the perceived gap between the suffering of Palestinians and the inadequate response of the international community. Throughout the text, Albanese argues that the crisis in Gaza and the broader Palestinian experience cannot be understood as isolated events but must be situated within a longer history of occupation, displacement, and structural inequality. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its accessibility. Albanese succeeds in translating complex legal concepts—including occupation, apartheid, collective punishment, forced displacement, and genocide—into language that can be understood by general readers without sacrificing analytical depth. Reviewers have noted her ability to combine legal expertise with personal reflection, producing a work that is both intellectually rigorous and emotionally compelling. The Irish Times, for example, described the book […]

Review: Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective

Research Assistants HUQUQ Bookreview Remedial Justice, Reparation 0

The demand for reparations for historical injustices—ranging from the transatlantic slave trade to colonial exploitation and forced sterilization—has moved from the margins of political discourse to the center of global human rights debates. In this timely and ambitious volume, Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective, editors Jacqueline Bhabha, Margareta Matache, and Caroline Elkins bring together a diverse cohort of scholars and advocates to examine the enduring legacies of state-sponsored violence. The book makes a compelling case that past injustices are not merely historical footnotes but active generators of ongoing harm that demand urgent, structural remediation. One of the book’s most significant achievements is its sweeping geographical and thematic scope. Rather than confining the reparations debate to African American slavery in the United States, the contributors offer a truly global perspective. The volume includes detailed case studies of state injustice spanning continents, from the enslavement of Roma people in Romania to colonial exploitation and atrocities in Guatemala, Algeria, Indonesia, Jamaica, and Guadeloupe. This expansive approach effectively dismantles the notion that reparations are a localized issue, demonstrating that the mechanics of state violence and demands for redress share common transnational threads. By juxtaposing these diverse case studies, the editors successfully highlight both the unique historical contours of each injustice and the universal imperatives of restorative justice, proving that the call for repair is a global phenomenon. The interdisciplinary lens of the volume is another of its defining strengths. The contributors include historians, anthropologists, human rights lawyers, sociologists, and political scientists, many of […]

Review: After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda

HUQUQ Research Team HUQUQ Bookreview Genocide, Transitional Justice 0

In the wake of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the international community and transitional justice scholars have long grappled with how a society can move forward from such unfathomable atrocities. Nicole Fox’s timely and ambitious book, After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda, enters this critical discourse by shifting the focus from macro-level political transitions to the lived experiences of survivors. The work includes an impressive arc that begins with the theoretical foundations of collective memory, moves through the lived realities of survivors interacting with various memorial sites, and culminates in a powerful critique of how state-mandated narratives often fail to represent all genders, ethnicities, and classes. By centering the voices of those often marginalized in dominant reconciliation narratives, the book offers a profound reexamination of how collective memory is constructed, contested, and experienced decades after the violence has ended. One of the book’s most significant contributions is its introduction of the concept of “stratified collective memory,” which powerfully illustrates how certain memories become privileged while others are systematically silenced. Fox structures her analysis around extensive, in-depth fieldwork and interviews with Rwandans, revealing the complex relationships survivors have with these spaces. She meticulously unpacks how official, state-sponsored memorials often amplify a unified, politically motivated narrative of the genocide that inadvertently retraumatizes or erases the experiences of vulnerable populations, particularly poor women and survivors of sexual violence. By weaving together depictions of community memorial sites, scenes of public courage, and the hidden shame that shrouds women’s reconciliation journeys, […]

Review: Islamophobia and Psychiatry: Recognition, Prevention, and Treatment (2nd ed.)

Editorial Team Reviews, HUQUQ Bookreview Genocide 0

Islamophobia and Psychiatry: Recognition, Prevention, and Treatment is an ambitious and timely interdisciplinary volume that positions Islamophobia not merely as a sociopolitical phenomenon but as a profound psychiatric, psychological, and civilizational concern. The second edition expands substantially upon the original 2019 publication, reflecting the intensification of anti-Muslim hostility in the aftermath of the events of October 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in the Middle East and North Africa region. The editors explicitly acknowledge this changed historical context in their introduction, emphasizing the renewed urgency of addressing Islamophobia within mental health discourse. The work’s greatest contribution lies in its successful integration of psychiatry, religion, social psychology, cultural studies, ethics, trauma studies, and public health into a single coherent framework. Rather than reducing Islamophobia to prejudice alone, the volume demonstrates how systemic hostility toward Muslims functions psychologically, institutionally, and clinically. The book thereby expands psychiatry’s traditional boundaries and argues for a more culturally and spiritually informed understanding of mental health. Structurally, the book is exceptionally comprehensive. Organized into six major sections—General Issues; Psychiatric Implications of Islamophobia; Specific Clinical Challenges; Social Psychiatric Implications; Islamophobia and Judaism; and Perspectives on the Future of Islamophobia—it covers both theoretical and applied dimensions of the subject. The diversity of contributors is equally noteworthy, bringing together psychiatrists, psychologists, scholars of religion, clinicians, and researchers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. This international and interfaith composition reinforces one of the book’s central claims: that Islamophobia is not solely a Muslim issue, […]

Review: Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

Editorial Team HUQUQ Bookreview Abuse of Power, Colonialism, Oppression, State Systems, Violence 0

The historiography of the British Empire has undergone profound revision in recent decades. Once dominated by narratives emphasizing administrative efficiency, constitutional development, and the spread of liberal institutions, scholarship has increasingly turned its attention to the coercive foundations of imperial rule. This reassessment has been driven not only by historians but also by scholars of human rights, international law, and postcolonial studies seeking to understand how systems of domination were justified, institutionalized, and remembered. In Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, Caroline Elkins intervenes decisively in this debate, arguing that violence was not an unfortunate byproduct of British imperial rule but rather one of its foundational organizing principles. Her sweeping study offers one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of the relationship between empire, law, and state violence, making it a significant contribution not only to imperial history but also to contemporary human rights scholarship. Elkins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian known for her groundbreaking work on British counterinsurgency in Kenya, extends her analysis far beyond any single colony. Drawing on archival research conducted across four continents, including records released from formerly concealed colonial archives, she traces patterns of repression across India, Ireland, Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus, Jamaica, South Africa, Kenya, and other territories. Her central argument is that British imperial governance developed a system she describes as “legalized lawlessness,” whereby extraordinary violence was repeatedly justified through legal mechanisms that suspended or manipulated the rule of law while preserving the appearance of legality. The book’s greatest strength lies […]

Incarceration as a Human Rights Barometer–Prison Labor and Power in Freeman’s Challenge

Ahmed Souaiaia HUQUQ Bookreview Incarceration, Prison Systems, State Crime, Systems Thinking, Work 0

Robin Bernstein, Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder That Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit A society’s true commitment to human rights is not revealed by its legal declarations or moral self-image, but by how it treats those placed beyond the protection of power. Marginalized social groups, persons marked by difference, and above all prisoners—human beings under the total and unmediated control of the state—offer the clearest measure. Where accountability is weakest, systems speak most honestly. Robin Bernstein’s Freeman’s Challenge provides a compelling historical case study of this principle, exposing how American incarceration operated not merely as punishment, but as a system of coerced labor designed to generate profit without reciprocity. Bernstein reconstructs the life, incarceration, and execution of William Freeman, a young Black man imprisoned at New York’s Auburn Prison in the 1840s. Auburn, often celebrated as a milestone in penal reform, was in fact the nation’s first large-scale experiment in prison labor for profit. Incarcerated men were forced to work in regimented silence, producing goods for the market and revenue for the state and private contractors. Freeman’s eventual act of violence—and the state’s determination to execute him despite serious questions about his mental capacity—cannot be understood apart from this system. Bernstein shows that Freeman was not simply an individual who failed within the prison; Freeman was a human being broken by a system that depended on his degradation. What makes Freeman’s Challenge especially powerful is Bernstein’s insistence on structural causation (read systems outcomes). The violence inflicted on Freeman emerges not […]

Business and Human Rights: Ethical, Legal, and Managerial Perspectives

Research Assistants HUQUQ Bookreview Business, Ethics 0

Florian Wettstein’s Business and Human Rights: Ethical, Legal, and Managerial Perspectives is a timely and ambitious intervention in a field that is still solidifying its contours. Business and Human Rights (BHR) has emerged in recent decades as both a scholarly discipline and a policy arena, spurred by the rise of globalization, corporate power, and mounting evidence of corporate involvement in human rights abuses. This text arrives at a moment when universities are rapidly institutionalizing BHR courses, often at the intersection of law, management, and ethics. Wettstein’s book therefore not only fills a pedagogical gap but also seeks to shape the intellectual and normative foundations of the field. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its breadth and structure. The work includes an impressive arc that begins with foundational philosophical debates (Part I), moves through corporate involvement in rights violations (Part II), develops normative justifications for business responsibilities (Part III), explores accountability and governance mechanisms (Part IV), and finally considers industry-specific case studies and emerging challenges (Part V). Such sequencing mirrors the way students might themselves encounter the field: from history and theory, to problems, to solutions and applications. The introductory chapter, pointedly titled “Learning and Unlearning Business and Human Rights”, sets the tone by destabilizing assumptions about both “human rights” and “business,” situating BHR as more than an extension of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This signals an intellectual seriousness that elevates the book above being a mere manual of compliance or best practices. Wettstein’s interdisciplinary lens is perhaps the defining […]

Book Review: “Beyond the Usual Beating”

Review Editors HUQUQ Bookreview Torture 0

Andrew S. Baer’s Beyond the Usual Beating: The Jon Burge Police Torture Scandal and Social Movements for Police Accountability in Chicago is a beautifully crafted and deeply disturbing account that offers raw insight into the covert activities of the notorious Areas 2 and 3 of the Chicago Police Department. Baer documents how white detectives, led by Jon Burge, routinely used inhumane and militarized torture strategies such as electrocution, suffocation, and beatings to extract confessions from Black suspects. The scandal’s horror lies not just in the brutality itself, but in how the entire criminal justice system sustained and protected it. Supervisors, prosecutors, public defenders, and judges were aware of the torture yet remained silent because coerced confessions helped close cases. Baer roots these acts in a long history of racial bias, showing how detectives’ upbringing, experiences, and prejudices shaped a system that treated Black suspects as disposable. Baer structures the book into six chapters, grouped into two parts. Part I traces the roots of the torture regime, both biographically and institutionally. The first chapter details Jon Burge’s (Burge) childhood in Chicago, his deployment to Vietnam, and how both his personal history and a generational backlash against deindustrialization, racial transition, and crime shaped his worldview. By the time Burge returned from Vietnam, where he likely witnessed or participated in prisoner abuse, the lines between military and policing tactics were already blurred. Chapter two shows how Burge’s personal biases were institutionalized. Joining the Chicago Police Department in 1970 and promoted to detective by […]

Human Acts: An Unflinching Meditation on Violence, Memory, and the Fragility of Humanity

Research Assistants HUQUQ Bookreview Resistance 0

In Human Acts, Nobel Laureate Han Kang offers a searing, poetic, and harrowing exploration of state violence and its brutal legacy. Drawing on the tragic events of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, Han constructs a deeply humane narrative that confronts the trauma and devastation inflicted by authoritarian regimes—and the emotional, moral, and existential cost borne by those who resist them. At its heart, Human Acts is not merely a historical novel. It is a lament, an elegy, a philosophical inquiry into what it means to be human in the face of unthinkable cruelty. Told through six interwoven narratives that span from the uprising itself to decades later, the novel resists linear storytelling in favor of a fragmented, polyphonic chorus. Each chapter gives voice to a different character—victims, survivors, witnesses—whose stories form a collective tapestry of grief, resilience, and brokenness. The novel opens with Dong-ho, a fifteen-year-old boy searching for the body of a friend among the mutilated dead in a makeshift gymnasium morgue. His voice is tender, innocent, and tragic—an embodiment of a moral clarity that stands in stark contrast to the monstrousness around him. But Han doesn’t linger long on any one character. As we move from Dong-ho to his grieving mother, a tortured editor, a former prisoner, and even a ghostly voice from beyond the grave, the reader is plunged into a visceral, haunting immersion in suffering—one that does not let go. In a style that is both restrained and lyrical, Han Kang conveys the horrors […]

Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

HUQUQ Editors HUQUQ Bookreview NGOs 0

In “Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments,” Kenneth Roth, the former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), provides an introspective account of his nearly thirty-year tenure with the organization. Roth’s memoir not only serves as a chronicle of HRW’s evolution into a prominent force in the human rights arena but also as a defense of his strategies and choices amid widespread criticism. In addition to the book content, this review draws upon other materials that critique the book’s narrative, depth, and implications, presenting a balanced view of Roth’s ambitious endeavor. Roth’s leadership transformed HRW from a modest organization into a powerful entity, capable of influencing international discourse on human rights. He recounts a series of significant events, from the Kurdish genocide to the abuses in Syria, highlighting the impactful role of HRW’s researchers and advocates. This portrayal aligns with some observers’ assertion that Roth approached human rights violations with an unwavering commitment to exposing the truth, relying heavily on empirical evidence and rigorous analysis. His forensic style—developed during his time as a prosecutor—shapes the narrative, allowing Roth to dissect complex situations with precision. However, this narrative is juxtaposed with a critique of Roth’s selective focus, particularly regarding Israel. For isntance, the absence of chapters detailing human rights abuses in Iran, raising concerns about a perceived bias that favors certain narratives while sidelining others. Roth’s tendency to frame issues in black-and-white terms—good versus evil—risks oversimplifying the multifaceted nature of global human rights advocacy. By neglecting […]