The politics of rights

Friedrich Kratochwil

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139583930.011

Meditation 7 - The politics of rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014

Friedrich Kratochwil

Show author details

Friedrich Kratochwil: Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Introduction

Rights, and especially human rights, we are told, are fundamental. They serve as “trumps” in legal arguments and are held to be of universal and trans-historical validity, identifying us as “humans” and not as a member (only) of this or that society. Despite the fact that they appear at a certain time in history, their status is supposed to be based on their “transcendental” nature by either being part of a natural order of things, or by virtue of the fact that they are intuited. They can be “declared” but not “made” as are other laws, even though they need to be formulated to find their way into constitutional texts. Thus rights claims give rise to a specific “rights talk,” which is, in spite of the fiction of its perennial existence, a specific modern phenomenon. It reached one of its peaks by the end of the eighteenth century – after a relatively short incubation period during the English Glorious Revolution – in the American and French Revolutions, and another in the post-Second World War era, particularly since the 1980s. Here the conjuncture of the “rights revolution” led first to the civil rights movement, and then to the adoption of a rights talk by transnational movements that pinpointed gross violations of individual rights by governments worldwide. After the collapse of the main alternative utopia to the Western political project, that is “communism,” the subsequent “silent revolutions” were increasingly fuelled by a “human” rather than merely a “civic” rights discourse.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Status of Law in World Society
Meditations on the Role and Rule of Law
, pp. 200 - 229

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139583930.011 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Dworkin, Ronald, “Rights as Trumps,” in Waldron, Jeremy (ed.), Theories of Rights (Oxford University Press, 1984), 153–67Google Scholar

Cranston, Maurice, “Are there any Human Rights,” Daedalus, vol. 112, no. 4 (Fall 1983), 1–17Google Scholar

Hart, H. L. A., “Are there any Natural Rights?,” in Waldron, Jeremy (ed.), Theories of Rights (Oxford University Press, 1984), 77–90Google Scholar

Brown, Chris, “Universal Human Rights: A Critique,” in Dunne, Tim and Wheeler, Thomas (eds.), Human Rights in Global Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 103–27CrossRef Google Scholar

Raz, Joseph, “Human Rights,” in Besson, Samantha and Tasioulas, John (eds.), The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2010), 321–38Google Scholar

Rengger, Nicholas, “The World Turned Upside Down: Human Rights and International Relations,” International Affairs, vol. 87, no. 5 (2011), 1159–78CrossRef Google Scholar

Simmons, N. E.’ contribution to the modern rights debate in his “Rights at the Cutting Edge,” in Kramer, Matthew, Simmons, N. E. and Steiner, Hillel (eds.), A Debate over Rights (Oxford University Press, 1998), 115–233Google Scholar

Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, Hunt, Lynn and Young, Marilyn B. (eds.), Human Rights and Revolutions (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000)Google Scholar

Moyn, Samuel, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010)Google Scholar

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, The Republic and the Laws, ed. by N. Rudd (Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar

Orford, Ann (ed.), International Law and it Others (Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRef Google Scholar

Ignatieff, Michel, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton University Press, 2001)Google Scholar

Beitz, Charles, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRef Google Scholar

William, Bernhard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985): 177Google Scholar

Waldron, Jeremy, Nonsense Upon Stilts: Bentham, Burke, Marx on the Rights of Man (London: Methuen 1987), 196Google Scholar

Glendon, Mary Ann, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse (New York: Free Press, 1991)Google Scholar

Meier, Christian, The Greek Discovery of Politics, transl. by David McClintock (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar

Aristotle, , Rhetoric, Book I, XII, 2–5 at 1378b2-3, ed. and transl. by J. H. Freese (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 139Google Scholar

Crow, John, The Epic of Latin America, 4th edn. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar

Meltzer, Françoise, “Theories of Desire: Antigone Again,” Critical Inquiry, vol. 37 (Winter 2011), 169–86CrossRef Google Scholar

Aristotle, , Rhetoric 1373b, transl. by H. L. C. Lawson Tancred (London: Penguin, 1991), 125Google Scholar

Macpherson, C. B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar

Kant, Immanuel, Rechtslehre, transl. by Hastie, W. as Immanuel Kant: The Philosophy of Law (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1887), Prolegomena, sec. II: The Division of a Metaphysics of Morals, pp. 20–6Google Scholar

Alston, Philip and Robinson, Mary (eds.), Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement (Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRef Google Scholar

Kremer, Matthew, Simmonds, Neil and Steiner, Hillel, A Debate over Rights (Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar

Wenar, Leif, “The Nature of Rights,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 33, no. 5 (2005), 223–52CrossRef Google Scholar

Sreenivasan, Gopal, “A Hybrid Theory of Claim Rights,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 25, no. 5 (2005), 257–74CrossRef Google Scholar

Kramer, Matthew and Steiner, Hillel, “Theories of Rights: Is there a Third Way?,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 27, no. 2 (2007), 281–310CrossRef Google Scholar

Haakonsen, Knud, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1996)CrossRef Google Scholar

Kahin, George M., The Asian African Conference: Bandung, Indonesia April 1955 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956), 80Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (San Diego/New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1976), 292Google Scholar

Donnelly, Jack, “The Social Construction of International Human Rights,” in Dunne, Tim and Wheeler, Nicholas (eds.), Human Rights and Global Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1999): 71–102CrossRef Google Scholar

Hamilton, Alexander, “The Farmer Refuted” (February 23, 1775) in Syrett, Harold C. et al. (eds.), The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), vol. I, 122Google Scholar

Zaret, David, “Tradition, Human Rights, and the English Revolution,” in Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, Hunt, Lynn and Young, Marilyn B. (eds.), Human Rights and Revolutions (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 43–58Google Scholar

Hutson, James, “The Bill of Rights and the American Revolutionary Experience,” in Lacey, Michael and Haakonssen, Knud (eds.), A Culture of Rights: The Bill of Rights in Philosophy, Politics and Law 1791–1991 (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 62–97, at 67Google Scholar

Reid, John Philip, Constitutional History of the American Revolution (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003)Google Scholar

Hartog, Hendrik (ed.), Law in the American Revolution and the Revolution of Law (New York University Press, 1981)Google Scholar

Bailyn, Bernard, Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750–1776, vol. 1, 1750–1765 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar

Zuckert, Michael, “Natural Rights in the American Revolution,” in Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, Hunt, Lynn and Young, Marilyn B. (eds.), Human Rights and Revolutions (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 59–76Google Scholar

Wilson, James, “Lectures on Law,” in Works, ed. by James De Witt Andrews, 2 vols. (Chicago: Callaghan and Co, 1896), vol. II, 303 and 307Google Scholar

Rossiter, Clinton (ed.), The Federalist Papers (New York: Mentor, 1961), 510–20Google Scholar

Berger, Raoul, “The Ninth Amendment,” Cornell Law Review, vol. 66 (November 1980), 1–26Google Scholar

Kammen, Michael, The Machine that Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (New York: Knopf, 1987)Google Scholar

Palmer, Richard, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 2 vols. (Princeton University Press, 1959 and 1964), particularly vol. I, chapter 5Google Scholar

Hunt, Lynn, “The Paradoxical Origins of Human Rights” in Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, Hunt, Lynn and Young, Marilyn B. (eds.), Human Rights and Revolutions (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 3–17 at 8Google Scholar

Scott, Joanne, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminism and the Rights of Man (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996)Google Scholar

Watt, Ian, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, Fielding (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar

Hunt, Lynn, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar

Fermon, Nicole, Domesticating Passion: Rousseau, Woman and the Nation (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1997)Google Scholar

Pateman, Carol, The Sexual Contract (Oxford: Polity, 1988)Google Scholar

Okin, Susan Moller, “Feminism, the Individual and Contract Theory,” Ethics, vol. 100 (April 1990), 658–69CrossRef Google Scholar

Rosenblum, Nancy (ed.), Liberalism and the Moral Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 39–53Google Scholar

The Papers of James Madison, ed. by Hutchinson, William et al., vol. XI (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1977): 297–300 at 297fGoogle Scholar

Ryan, Alan, “The British, the Americans and Rights,” in Lacey, Michael and Haakonssen, Knud (eds.), A Culture of Rights: The Bill of Rights in Philosophy, Politics and Law 1791–1991 (Cambridge University Press, 1991): 366–439 at 377Google Scholar

Bentham, Jeremy, “Nonsense on Stilts,” in Waldron, Jeremy, Nonsense Upon Stilts (London: Methuen 1987): 29–60Google Scholar

Hume, David, The History of England: From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1983–85)Google Scholar

Waldron, Jeremy, “The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 115 (2006), 1348–406CrossRef Google Scholar

Bullock, Alan, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper, 1964)Google Scholar

Gaete, Rolando, Human Rights and the Limits of Critical Reason (Brookfield: Dartmouth, 1993), 91Google Scholar

Dworkin, Ronald, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), Introduction at XIGoogle Scholar

Habermas, Juergen, Legitimization Crisis (London, 1976), 87Google Scholar

Dagger, Richard, “Rights,” in Ball, Terrence, Farr, James and Hanson, Russell (eds.), Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 292–308Google Scholar

Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della, On the Dignity of Man, transl. by Charles Glenn Wallis (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998)Google Scholar

Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. by Talcott Parsons (New York: Scribner’s, 1958)Google Scholar

Troeltsch, Ernst, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, trans. by Olive Wyon (New York: Macmillan, 1992)Google Scholar

Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (University of Chicago Press, 1958)Google Scholar

Bunyan, John, The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to that of Which is to Come (Oxford University Press, (1678) 2008)Google Scholar

Barbato, Mariano, Pilgrimage, Politics and International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)CrossRef Google Scholar

Heinrich, Dieter and Pacini, David, “The Context of Autonomy: Some Presuppositions of the Comprehensibility of Human Rights,” Daedalus, vol. 112 (Fall 1983), 255–77, at 259Google Scholar

Yasuaki, Onuma, “A Transcivilisational Perspective on Global Legal Order in the 21st Century: A Way to Overcome West-centric and Judiciary-centric Deficits in International Legal Thought,” in Macdonals, Ronald St and Johnston, Douglas (eds.), Towards World Constitutionalism (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2005), 151–89Google Scholar

Hwa, Yol Yong “The Way of Ecopiety: An Essay in Deep Ecology from a Sinitic Perspective,” Asian Philosophy, vol. 1, no. 2 (1991), 127–40Google Scholar

Tamanaha, Brian, On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Political Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 138CrossRef Google Scholar

Discourse on Method, transl. by Sutcliffe, F. E. (London: Penguin 1962), at 38 and 45 (2nd and 3rd Discourse)Google Scholar

Raz, Joseph, “Liberating Duties,” Law and Philosophy, vol. 8 (1989), 3–21 at 14Google Scholar

Kant, Immanuel, Zum Ewigen Frieden (Berlin: Preussische Akademieausgabe): 372

Koskenniemi, Martti, “Miserable Comforters: International Relations as a New Natural Law,” European Journal of International Relations, vol. 15 (2009), 395–422CrossRef Google Scholar