Abstract
The US’s authority as chief enforcer of human rights grows increasingly illusory as civil unrest brings the quotidian nature of racialised human rights violations in the US into a frame shared by authoritarian regimes. This reality animates my analysis of how an organisation I call Doctors for Humanity (DfH) finds its footing in a terrain of human rights enforcement that is shifting from a global to a domestic focus. The US is not an actual space of freedom but often represents the limit of possible freedoms. This horizon evokes something that always could be but never has been and unmasks what I analyse as a constitutive unfreedom at the heart of liberalism in American empire. To attend to human rights violations in the US is to undermine American authority and its right and responsibility to make claims about the actions of other nations. As a future physician and human rights advocate invested in racial justice, I illuminate the paradoxes of ethical action within a context where the possibility of freedom for some depends upon the unfreedom of others. To effectively police human rights from this perspective necessitates the deconstruction of the US as a space of freedom, pointing instead towards a praxis of global human rights which lives up to the concept’s aspirational universality.
Highlights
The US’s authority as chief enforcer of human rights grows increasingly illusory as civil unrest brings the quotidian nature of racialised human rights violations in the US into a frame shared by authoritarian regimes
After months of confinement to their homes, Americans took to the streets to protest the injustices reflected in George Floyd’s death and in the structural inequalities that engendered disparities in the effect of the COVID19 pandemic on Black and Brown communities (Hardeman, Medina, and Boyd 2020)
American institutions took up the cause; responses to these events entailed everything from participation in protests to institutional statements and the transformation of organisational agendas
Summary
The gap between the image of the US as a bastion of freedom and its reality inspires my central question in this Position Piece: how do you police human rights violations when your own house isn’t in order? This question is somewhat tonguein-cheek; as I will note, the US has never quite had its proverbial house in order. The Trump administration employed rhetorical strategies that spoke explicitly to reactionary corners of the US It enacted a marked retreat of the US from international human rights affairs. As many scholars have noted, the US has always walked a tightrope between its ideals for other nations and the norms it practices itself, carefully balancing discourses of ostensible freedom and practices of repression (see, for example Lowe 2015; Singh 1998; Singh 2012; Stoler 2006) Despite this constitutive contradiction, it is undeniable that a break from the nominal investment in rights marks a significant shift in the geopolitical stance of the American state.. It is undeniable that a break from the nominal investment in rights marks a significant shift in the geopolitical stance of the American state. In the wake of such transformations, human rights organisations ( US-based NGOs) must pivot to cope with a rapid shift in political realities—but how? What are organisations based in a nation whose government has responded with devastating inadequacy to the pandemic and hosed down peaceful protesters to do?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
