Wendy Chavkin & Ellen Chesler 
Where Human Rights Begin [PDF ebook] 

More than a decade ago, three landmark world conferences placed the human rights of women on the international agenda. The first, in Vienna, officially extended the definition of human rights to include a woman s right to self-determination and equality. A year later, in Cairo, this concept was elaborated to deal explicitly with issues of sexuality and procreation. Subsequently, at a conference in Beijing, the international community committed to a wide range of practical interventions to advance women s sexual, social, political, and economic rights.Despite these accomplishments, we find ourselves at an ever more difficult juncture in the struggle to fully realize women s rights as human rights. Complications, such as terrorism and the war against it, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the incursion of religious fundamentalism into governments, and the U.S. government s retreat from the international agenda on sexual and reproductive rights have raised questions about the direction of policy implementations and have prevented straightforward progress.This timely collection brings together eight wide-reaching and provocative essays that examine the practical and theoretical issues of sexual and reproductive health policy and implementation.