Deontology, Functionality, and Scope in The Sovereignty of Human Rights

Abstract

In The Sovereignty of Human Rights (SHR),1 Patrick Macklem asks a question of crucial importance to anyone interested in the theory and practice of international human rights and global governance: what is international human rights law for? The answer cannot simply be what one would expect from a law student in international human rights 101, something like “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights,”2 because that response would not provide an account of the need for such a large-scale corpus of international law and institutions, that often replicate or supplement domestic systems of formal human rights protection (constitutional and otherwise).3 Nor does it explain why states sign up to legally binding international commitments (whose credibility and effectiveness are, one must state from the outset, sub-optimal at best)4 in fields of human rights that do not obviously present international collective action problems whose solution necessitates legal cooperation across borders.5