Human Rights as a ‘Substitute Utopia’? Questionable Assumptions in Samuel Moyn’s Work

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ABSTRACT Samuel Moyn surprises, provokes and polarises. In his widely read monographs on historical facets of human rights, he deconstructs heroic narratives and challenges traditional assumptions on the origins of human rights. Human rights need critical accompaniment. Without systematic scrutiny, human rights practice can slip into political arrogance and moralistic complacency. Moreover, there is the ever-lurking danger that human rights organisations become self-serving rather than working on the issues they are supposed to foster. The concept of human rights itself can be turned into a modern humanitarian quasi-religion, whose tenets might claim absolute superiority over all other forms of ethos. In short: there are many reasons why a thorough critique of human rights – ‘their claims, their norms and their practices –’ is useful and indeed imperative.