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Law From Below: Women's Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City
Author(s) -
Merry Sally Engle,
Levitt Peggy,
Rosen Mihaela Şerban,
Yoon Diana H.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2010.00397.x
Subject(s) - grassroots , human rights , law , political science , international human rights law , social movement , sociology , politics , position (finance) , right to property , fundamental rights , ambivalence , law and economics , economics , psychology , social psychology , finance
Despite the ambivalent history of the domestic application of human rights in the United States, human rights increasingly offer important resources for American grassroots activists. Within the constraints of U.S. policy toward human rights, they provide social movements a kind of global law “from below”: a form of cosmopolitan law that subalterns can use to challenge their subordinate position. Using a case study from New York City, we argue that in certain contexts, human rights can provide important political resources to U.S. social movements. However, they do so in a diffuse way far from the formal system of human rights law. Instead, activists adopt some of the broader social justice ideas and strategies embedded within human rights practice.