Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book develops the theoretical connections between international law, sovereignty, states and rights and the consequences of state failure for these relationships. It traces the development of contemporary human rights discourse and shows how the legal approach to human rights became dominant after WWII. The book also examines the phenomenon of state failure. It also emphasizes the important distinction between governments. To explore the impact of moderate failures, the book presents cases where states fail in different ways, creating distinctive patterns of human rights conditions. In Burma/Myanmar the military government possessed a monopoly of the use of force in most of the country, but crippled the civil service. The Indian state of Bihar has a relatively effective civil service, in part due to support from the central government, but suffers from an erosion of the monopoly of the use of force.