Richard
P. Hiskes is the Minor Director of the Human Rights Institute.
Biography: Richard P. Hiskes is the senior political theorist
in the Department of Political Science at the University of Connecticut.
He received his MA (1975) and PhD (1978) in political science at Indiana
University, and specializes in modern and contemporary political thought,
democratic theory, environmental ethics, and human rights theory.
Throughout his career in numerous books and articles Professor Hiskes
has explored many central concepts underlying democratic politics, environmental
policymaking and the philosophical foundations of human rights. A conceptual
focus running throughout all his works is the ideal of community and
how
it forms a backdrop to issues within democratic theory, science and technology
policy, and human rights. He is the author or co-author of four books
that explore these themes: Community Without Coercion: Getting Along
in
the Minimal State (University of Delaware Press, 1982); Science, Technology
and Policy Decisions (with Anne L. Hiskes, Westview, 1986); Direct Democracy
and International Politics (with John T. Rourke and C.E. Zirakzadeh,
Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 1992); and Democracy, Risk, and Community: Technological
Hazards and the Evolution of Liberalism (Oxford, 1998).
Professor Hiskes’s current research focuses on environmental human
rights and justice across generations. He is preparing a book manuscript
on the subject and has several published or forthcoming articles on the
topic, including “The Right to a Green Future: Human Rights, Environmentalism,
and Intergenerational Justice,” forthcoming in November, 2005 in
Human Rights Quarterly; “Environmental Human Rights and Intergenerational
Justice,” forthcoming in 2006 in Human Rights Review; and “Environmental
Rights, Intergenerational Justice, and Reciprocity with the Future,” Public
Affairs Quarterly, July, 2005.
