Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World, by Samuel Moyn

Abstract

Human rights have come to represent some of the highest ideals of humanity. In Samuel Moyn’s Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World, the Professor of History and Law at Yale University traces the history of the origins of human rights and details a comprehensive narrative of their evolution through various sources. Despite their status as a legal ideology, human rights have often been colloquially invoked to describe broader social entitlements. For this reason, Moyn’s work goes far beyond situating rights as legal instruments, and engages with the political philosophies that underpin human rights as an ideology that function as a reflection of their place in history. This book review is available in Osgoode Hall Law Journal: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol57/ iss1/11