A powerful and urgent explanation and vindication of our human rights and freedoms

Our human rights are endangered. After the devastation of World War Two the international community united to enshrine fundamental rights to refuge, health, education and living standards. They protected privacy, fair trials and free speech and outlawed torture, slavery and discrimination. Their goal was greater global justice, equality and peace. That settlement is now under attack from opponents on both left and right and populist and authoritarian movements worldwide. Simultaneously, we are threatened by war, inequality, new tech and climate catastrophe, crises human rights can help us address.

In this urgent, powerful book, Shami Chakrabarti, demonstrates why human rights matter and why we need to secure further rights to deal with challenges of the present and future. Outlining the historic national and international struggles for human rights, from ancient Babylon to the present day, Chakrabarti is an indispensable guide to the law and logic underpinning human dignity and universal freedoms. This book equips supporters in the battle of ideas and will encourage doubters to think again.

To believe in human rights is to believe in human beings. If they - and we - are to survive, these rights must be owned and understood by everyone.

Seventy years after the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the UK is guilty of undermining the very principles of asylum, inhumanely detaining those seeking protection and ushering in sweeping changes that threaten to punish refugees at every turn. But the UK’s immigration system is not alone in committing such breaches of human rights. The fourth volume of Refugee Tales explores our present international environment, combining author re-tellings with first-hand accounts of individuals who have been detained across the world. As the coronavirus pandemic defies borders – leaving those who are detained even more vulnerable – this collection shares stories spanning Canada, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK, and calls for international insistence on a future without detention. Featuring a prologue by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti. The fourth volume in the Refugee Tales series, proceeds from the sales of which go to two refugee charities.

On Liberty is the story of today's threats to our freedoms and a highly personal, impassioned plea in defence of fundamental rights, from Shami Chakrabarti, Britain's leading human rights campaigner On 11 September 2001, our world changed. The West's response to 9/11 has morphed into a period of exception. Governments have decided that the rule of law and human rights are often too costly. In On Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti explores why our fundamental rights and freedoms are indispensable. She shows, too, the unprecedented pressures those rights are under today. Drawing on her own work in high-profile campaigns, from privacy laws to anti-terror legislation, Chakrabarti shows the threats to our democratic institutions and why our rights are paramount in upholding democracy. 'Probably the most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years' - David Aaronovitch, The Times 'The undaunted freedom fighter' - Observer 'The most dangerous woman in Britain' - Sun

This book starts from the position that gender injustice is the greatest human rights abuse on the planet. It blights First and developing worlds; rich and poor women. Gender injustice impacts health, wealth, education, representation, opportunity and security everywhere. It is no exaggeration to describe the position of women as an apartheid, but it is not limited to one country or historical period. For this ancient and continuing wrong is millennial in duration and global in reach. Only radical solutions can even scratch its surface. However, the prize is a great one: the collateral benefits to peace, prosperity, sustainability and general human happiness are potentially enormous. All this because we are all interconnected and all men are of women too.