Law Meets Sociology in Human Rights

Abstract

This paper discusses the merits of a multidisciplinary approach to human rights. Since 1945, the building of a global legal architecture, including norms and institutions at various levels of regulation, constituted tremendous progress for human rights. However, lack of compliance, individualization of human rights claims, and formality have made laws ineffective in protecting wider human population. Multidisciplinarity in human rights mainly emerged as a remedy of an exclusively legal approach. Being realistic and empirical, multidisciplinary efforts help expand the definition of human rights to increase its effectiveness for populations or cultures under threat as well as large groups of people.