Bøker av Aryeh Neier

A new edition of the most important free speech book of the past half-century, with a new essay by the author on the ensuing fifty years of First Amendment controversies When Nazis wanted to express their right to free speech in 1977 by marching through Skokie, Illinois--a town with a large population of Holocaust survivors--Aryeh Neier, then the national director of the ACLU and himself a Holocaust survivor--came to the Nazis' defense. Explaining what many saw as a despicable bridge too far for the First Amendment, Neier spelled out his thoughts about free speech in his 1977 book Defending My Enemy. Now, nearly fifty years later, Neier revisits the topic of free speech in a volume that includes his original essay along with an extended new piece addressing some of the most controversial free speech issues of the past half-century. Touching on hot-button First Amendment topics currently in play, the second half of the book includes First Amendment analysis of the "Unite the Right" march in Charlotteville, campus protest over the Israel/Gaza war, book banning, trigger warnings, right-wing hate speech, the heckler's veto, and the recent attempts by public figures including Donald Trump to overturn the long-standing Sullivan v. The New York Times precedent shielding the media from libel claims. Including an afterword by longtime free speech champion Nadine Strossen, Defending My Enemy offers razor-sharp analysis from the man Muck Rack describes as having "a glittering civil liberties résumé."

During the past several decades, the international human rights movement has had a crucial hand in the struggle against totalitarian regimes, cruelties in wars, and crimes against humanity. Today, it grapples with the war against terror and subsequent abuses of government power. In The International Human Rights Movement, Aryeh Neier--a leading figure and a founder of the contemporary movement--offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of this global force, from its beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to its essential place in world affairs today. Neier combines analysis with personal experience, and gives a unique insider's perspective on the movement's goals, the disputes about its mission, and its rise to international importance. Discussing the movement's origins, Neier looks at the dissenters who fought for religious freedoms in seventeenth-century England and the abolitionists who opposed slavery before the Civil War era. He pays special attention to the period from the 1970s onward, and he describes the growth of the human rights movement after the Helsinki Accords, the roles played by American presidential administrations, and the astonishing Arab revolutions of 2011. Neier argues that the contemporary human rights movement was, to a large extent, an outgrowth of the Cold War, and he demonstrates how it became the driving influence in international law, institutions, and rights. Throughout, Neier highlights key figures, controversies, and organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and he considers the challenges to come. Illuminating and insightful, The International Human Rights Movement is a remarkable account of a significant world movement, told by a key figure in its evolution.

A penetrating memoir on forty years of fighting for civil liberties, human rights, and justice by the former executive director of the ACLU and Human Rights Watch and the current President of the Open Society Institute