ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how rights and regulation form overlapping and complementary aspects of processes of disputing and rule-elaboration that can be captured by two well-known triads - 'naming, blaming and claiming' and 'rule-making, monitoring and enforcement'. It explores what happens when rights discourse is employed to challenge inequality within an internet-based community - the 'Greedy Associates' website forum for US lawyers to discuss 'life as a lawyer'. The book identifies how the internalization of human rights within the World Bank faces difficulties created by 'interpretive gaps' between different interpretive communities within the Bank. It examines the emergence of indigenous rights in relation to the culture of global society. The book examines contacts in New York City over laws and regulations designed to police dance clubs, in the context of neoliberal urban planning policies at local government level since the late 1970s.
