Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction considers the controversies surrounding the human rights movement by focusing on highly topical issues such as torture, arbitrary detention, privacy, equality, health, and discrimination. It discusses the historical origins of human rights and how they are formed in law; explains what our human rights actually are; and considers where the human rights movement might be heading. Today, it is usually not long before a problem gets expressed as a human rights issue. Indeed, human rights law continues to gain increasing attention internationally, and must move quickly in order to keep up with a social world, which is changing so rapidly.