Revised and edited versions of papers presented at a conference at Maastricht University, Maastricht Centre for Human Rights, in November 2007.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A primer / Fons Coomans, Fred Gr�unfeld and Menno T. Kamminga -- Social science methods and human rights / Todd Landman -- Redefining normative legal science : towards and argumentative discipline / Jan M. Smits -- Human rights studies : on the dangers of legalistic assumptions / David P. Forsythe -- Methods in legal human rights research / Eva Brems -- The need for evidence-based human rights research / Hans-Otto Sano and Hatla Thelle -- Measure for measure : utilizing legal norms and health data in measuring the right to health / Dabney Evans and Megan Price -- Methods in health and human rights research : towards a spiral of co-learning / Maria Stuttaford -- Telling truth? : the methodological challenges of truth commissions / Paul Gready -- Methodological challenges in country of origin research / Marco Formisano -- Treaty interpretation and the social sciences / Koen de Feyter -- Methods of philosophical research on human rights / Andreas Follesdal.

"Which criteria can be identified to qualify a piece of human rights research as a methodologically sound piece of work? Are there aspects and considerations that are typical for human rights research? What are good practices in human rights research? The book addresses these questions from the perspective of different scholarly fields relevant for human rights research: law (including international law and criminal law); social sciences (including criminology, political science, comparative politics, international relations and anthropology); and philosophy and history (the humanities)." "This book is essential reading for any PhD candidate embarking on a dissertation in the field of human rights and any human rights scholar wishing to critically reflect on the quality of her/his own methods of work."--Jacket.