4 - Limitations of Human Rights

Summary

Faced with the challenge of accommodating diversity, liberal justice and human rights promise to provide an adequate normative framework for securing equal liberties and rights for all. However, despite great advancements in theory and law, discrimination endures, and these promises have not been fulfilled for enduring minorities, especially in places of ethno-national conflict. The problem this chapter aims to highlight is that while liberal democracy and human rights frameworks provide us with a desirable ideal, they fail to provide useful guidance for progress, from a situation of ethno-national conflict – which often involves political exclusion, sharp inequalities, low mutual trust, and high animosity – to more just and peaceful societies that respect the human rights of all. Self-determination is currently blocked as a legal remedy; states are reluctant to grant minority rights, especially in cases where majority–minority relations are in conflict; and scholars of equality law, asserting that any real advancement is blocked because of the individualist orientation of the law, send us back to collective measures.