RightsViews is a Columbia University blog published by the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR) and managed by graduate and undergraduate student editors and staff writers. RightsViews highlights ongoing conversations about developments in the human rights field amongst students and faculty at Columbia University. You can read more about our editors here, and about our staff writers here.

We also feature posts by a variety of guest contributors including practitioners and scholars from other institutions, participants in our Human Rights Advocates Program, ISHR interns and representatives from affiliated organizations inside and outside of Columbia.

RightsViews publishes opinion pieces, individual research and perspectives from the field on a wide range of subjects related to human rights theory, practice and policy. We interpret “human rights” with a broad lens, drawing from multiple fields of study from sociology to feminism to critical race theory, in addition to more classical conceptions of human rights in law, theory, and practice. The ways that human rights enact themselves are diverse; we aim to be representative of this in our content and practices as a blog. 

We are committed to content that is well-researched, inclusive, and intersectional. We recognize that part and parcel to writing about human rights is acknowledging the ways in which individuals and communities can experience overlapping forms of marginalization. We are conscious of and committed to antiracism in our content and practices. 

We are also cognizant that the history of human rights itself is entrenched in ideas and practices that have been harmful to many. Thus, we also consider RightsViews as a space for nuanced critique of human rights issues. 

We hope that RightsViews will be a participatory forum where our readers can learn from our contributors and vice versa. We encourage respectful discussion and debate through comments, questions, suggestions, and resources posted in the “Comments” field of any of our posts. Please read our policies for more information about our comment guidelines.