This is a critical reappraisal of the project for universal human rights. The 20th, 30th and 40th anniversaries of the Universal Declaration were all marked by the publication of volumes that celebrated achievements in the field of human rights. Many of these took a self-congratulatory line that emphasised progress on the protection of human rights, ignoring the facts of torture, genocide, structural deprivation and the routine exclusion of some groups from political, economic, and social participation. This book brings together some of the leading critics of the current project for universal human rights, including Noam Chomsky and Johan Galtung, as a counterweight to triumphalist approaches on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration.