The radical ideation of peasants, the ‘pseudo-radicalism’ of international human rights law, and the revolutionary lawyer

Abstract

Abstract This article questions the use of international human rights law in realising social transformation. It studies the new United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, drawing on the commodity-form theory of law. Through this lens, foregrounding the relationship between capitalism and law and their shared constituent form, the contradiction in what is at times a radical normative project in international human rights law is revealed. With the unintended consequences of human rights lawyering made visible, this work turns to the means through which the advocate can launch a potentially transformative ‘legal’ strategy. An exploration of two seminal modes of reconciliation follows: reconciling the use of international human rights law with a commitment to social transformation and reconciling the post-capitalist politics of progressive lawyers with their use of the law.