A Most Uncertain Crusade: The United States, the United Nations, and Human Rights, 1941–1953 by Rowland Brucken

Excerpt

Rowland Brucken’s A Most Uncertain Crusade: The United States, the United Nations, and Human Rights, 1941–1953 chronicles the history of the modern human rights regime, beginning in late nineteenth century and extending beyond World War II. The international community began composing multilateral declarations and making agreements intended to moderate the conduct of warfare, safeguard the victims of hostilities, and develop a humanitarian law of combat in the late 1800s. Following World War I, the covenant instituting the League of Nations dedicated its members to a number of human rights objectives. Yet this community of nation-states deemed it largely the duty of national governments to protect individual rights before World War II. The emergence of fascism, the flagrant disregard for human rights by the Axis powers during World War II, and the United States’ strategic preparation for postwar global peace and stability led to more active deliberation and energetic concern for the subject of human rights, which has truly come of age as a notable and legally-sanctioned transnational interest. …