The politics of universalism. Strategic uses of human rights discourses in early modernity

Abstract

This article investigates the political function of human rights in 16th-century Spain just after the conquest of America. It claims that the study of this period of early globalization is relevant for an understanding of the function of human rights discourses today, at the “end” of globalization. Historically speaking, human rights are closely connected with globalization, but at the same time, they raise the question about the foundation of globalization: is there a universal community or only economic and political power-relations? This article argues that the political use of human rights discourses is split down the middle: it serves both as a critique of power and as an extension of power, and the disclosure of this split helps us understand the inner politics of human rights. The article discusses the trial in Valladolid in 1550 when the rights of the barbarian Indians of America were put on trial. It focuses mainly on the arguments made by Bartolomé de las Casas and on the reasons why the King allowed las Casas’ fierce critique of the conquest to be published in a period of otherwise severe censorship. This article is inspired by Etienne Balibar's idea of “politics of universalism,” “political autonomy,” and “equaliberty.”Karen-Margrethe L. Simonsen, Doctor Phil., Associate Professor, Comparative Literature, Department of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University, Director of the Research Unit, Humanistic Studies of Human Rights. Publications: Law and Justice in Literature, Film and Theatre. Nordic Perspectives on Law and Humanities, Ed. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, Series: Law and Literature, 2013, Law and Literature. Interdisciplinary Readings and Perspectives, (ed. with. Ditlev Tamm) Copenhagen: DJØF Publishing House, 2010, “Towards a New Europe? On Emergent and Transcultural Literary Histories” in Cosmopolitanism as related to European literature, ed. Theo D'Haen and César Domínguez, Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi Press, forthcoming 2013, “Global Panopticism. On the Eye of Power in Modern Surveillance Society and Post-Orwellian Self-Surveillance and Sousveillance-Strategies in Modern Art” in “"Visualizing Law and Authority. Essays on Legal Aesthetics",” ed. Leif Dahlberg in the series Law and Literature, De Gruyter, forthcoming 2012, “To See and not to See: On the Eye of Power in Modern Surveillance Societies and Post-Orwellian Selfsurveillance Strategies in Tracking Transience by Hasan Elahi” Pólemos. Rivista semestrale di diritto, politica e cultura, vol. 1, 2011, p. 47–60, “Holocaust Literature and the Shaping of European Identity after the Second World War: The Case of Jorge Semprún”.” European Identity and the Second World War, edited by M. Spiering and M.J. Wintle, London: Macmillan/Palgrave, 2011, p. 256-–278.