Debating Rights Inflation in Canada

Dominique Clément is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Human Rights in Canada: A History (WLU Press, 2016), Canada's Rights Revolution, and Equality Deferred, as well as the co-editor of Alberta's Human Rights Story and Debating Dissent. His website, HistoryOfRights.ca, serves as research and teaching portal on the study of human rights.

In Canada, as in many other advanced countries, human rights have proliferated, leading many commentators to proclaim that rights have triumphed over other modes of social organization. Perhaps so, but Dominique Clément worries that rights inflation beyond the protection of core interests paradoxically interferes with broader efforts to achieve social justice. In this fascinating book, Clément lays out a powerful account of the dark side of the Canadian experience of human rights. Four responses by leading experts give the reader numerous perspectives on this difficult problem. Eric Posner, Professor, University of Chicago Law School

• Rights Inflation in Canada - Dominique ClémentCommentary: The Right Investment in Rights - Nathalie DesRosiersCommentary: Too Many Rights? - Pearl EliadisCommentary: Liberalism, Social Democracy, and Human Rights - Rhoda E. Howard-HassmannCommentary: Historical Contingency and Human Rights Pluralism - Gert VerschraegenContributorsNotesIndex