Exploring the most formidable human rights challenges facing the Middle East--the rights of women, minorities, migrant workers, those of various sexual orientations, and the rights of all people to engage in civil disobedience--this volume addresses the extent to which dynamics surrounding human rights conditions in the region conform to or diverge from such dynamics in other parts of the world. Offering wide-ranging and rich analyses, the contributors to this volume argue that for human rights to be effectively enforced, they must be locally justified and achieved. The 2011 Arab revolts demonstrate that the people of the region can shape the condition of human rights in their societies.

The authors provide a systematic analysis of looking beyond the abuses of human rights in the Middle East with a view toward problematizing traditional doctrinal thinking and concepts in the region, ascertaining comparative and historical roots of human rights abuses in the Middle East.