The study of human rights is inseparable from social studies. Beyond the basic political, economic, and social freedoms and rights spelled out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, hundreds of specialized topics have developed that demonstrate the complex nature of human rights in the twenty-first-century world--environmental exploitation…

In this article, the author examines another dimension of human rights--the problem of torture. He looks at U.S. commitments to international conventions prohibiting torture in light of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He shows how a position adopted by the Bush administration that these international conventions did not apply to the war…