PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review is pleased to announce the release of a special virtual edition on the topic of human rights and anthropology. 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the UN’s two main human rights covenants – the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This occasion offers an auspicious moment in which to reflect upon what have been the key threads in anthropologists’ approaches to human rights over the past decades.

Edited by Joshua Clark and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, the edition begins with an introduction to the trajectory of the anthropology of human rights as comprised of three miniature ‘generations’ and some insights on where the sub-field might be heading and concludes with an afterword by Julie Billaud. It features original articles and postscripts by Elif Babül, Andrea Ballestero, Loring M. Danforth, Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, Iris Jean-Klein, Sally Engle Merry, Annelise Riles, Niels Nagelhus Schia, Teresa Sierra, and Shannon Speed.

The nine original articles published in PoLAR are free to access until February 2017.