Human Rights & Social Justice: Research Databases

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 lists the fundamental human rights that are common to all people. These rights include the right to life, the prohibition against slavery, torture and arbitrary arrest, equality before the law, and the freedom of movement, peaceful assembly, and participation in government. Subsequent international human rights treaties and state practice have elaborated upon and expanded these rights, thus making international human rights a large and complicated field. Researchers in the field of international human rights must navigate a sometimes confusing array of treaties, reports, case law and other documents.

-- Georgetown University Library, Human Rights Law Research Guide

The role of research in the creation and sustaining of a more socially just, equitable and humane world cannot be undervalued. Social justice research has the potential, through its direct application, to aid in resolving concrete social problems, organizing social change efforts, influencing public policy, meeting community-based needs, and transforming institutions.

-- Georgetown University, Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service

Sample Research Questions:

1. What do the interdisciplinary fields of gender, ethnic, and area studies contribute to the pursuit of social justice, and how can these roles be enhanced to strengthen public humanities? What could the combined expertise of feminist and ethnic studies contribute to the realization of community?
2. The current transformations of the relations between state, market and society are placing new demands on the realization of “family” and “community” and the ongoing struggles for social justice, including gender and sexuality equity. What conventional and new livelihood strategies and forms of organizing are evident in social responses to these reconfigurations?
3. What are the effects of hegemonic national discourses of security on the institutional cultures of selected institutions?

-- University of California, Davis, Social Justice Initiative