Between morality and law: In defense of a political conception of human rights

Abstract

Human rights are currently either seen in a morally exaggerated way as “trump cards” in political negotiations or they are pruned back to a purely juridical level, absorbed into legal instances. In contrast to this, the author defends a political conception of human rights that overcomes the problems besetting both conceptions, but without having to sacrifice their critical, normative content or a realistic role for human rights in international politics. The author argues, first, that a political conception of human rights assumes that human rights grow out of concrete experiences of injustice and are the product of political struggles. Human rights are, second, placeholders for the public thematization of oppression, humiliation, marginalization, and despotism. At the same time, human rights as placeholders not only provide the foil against which criticism of existing conditions is exercised but are also themselves objects of criticism. And, finally, the obligations imposed by human rights are not duties of assistance but institutional duties to realize the conditions for exercising human rights.