Ethical Human Rights Research Articles

A Global Political Morality: Human Rights, Democracy, and Constitutionalism

In A Global Political Morality, Michael J. Perry addresses several related questions in human rights theory, political theory and constitutional theory. He begins by explaining what the term 'human right' means and then elaborates and defends the morality of human rights, which is the first truly global morality in human history. Perry also pursues the implications of the morality of human rights for democratic governance and for the proper role of courts - especially the US Supreme Court - in protecting constitutionally entrenched human rights. The principal constitutional controversies discussed in the book are capital punishment, race-based affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide and abortion.

CSR to Be or not Be

Although the roots of CSR lie in philanthropic activities of corporations, globally, the concept of CSR has evolved and now encompasses all related concepts such as triple bottom line, corporate citizenship, philanthropy, strategic philanthropy, shared value, corporate sustainability and business responsibility. CSR is "the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society". To completely meet their social responsibility, enterprises "should have in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders". CSR is "the continuing commitment by business to contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the community and society at large." Corporate social responsibility is a management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions with their stakeholders.

The interplay of the legal and the moral dimension of human rights for the implementation of human rights

This article addresses human rights in their complexity by dealing with the legal dimension of human rights and the moral dimension of human rights. The discussion of both dimensions and their specific contributions to the implementation of human rights - e.g., the element of enforcement by the legal dimension of human rights or the aspect of justifying the universality of human rights through the moral dimension - and their limits (e.g., the risk of particularity of legal human rights or the 'weakness' of moral human rights) lays the ground for the deliberation of the relation between them. Based on this assessment and deepened understanding of both dimensions, their interplay for the implementation of human rights is explored.

Plenary Session: Health Disparities, Ethics of Human Rights, and Social Justice

Plenary Session: Health Disparities, Ethics of Human Rights, and Social Justice

A Right to Health Care? Participatory Politics, Progressive Policy and the Price of Loose Language

In this paper I assess the claim that there is a moral human right to health care roughly as set out by Article 12 of the ICESCR. After developing a conception of moral human rights as necessary conditions to legal human rights (by treaty or custom) with prima facie moral force, I argue that while there is a moral human right to health care it is far more modest than that set out by Article 12. I argue also that the human right to health care is thus of limited value in the context of health care reform efforts and that this ought to be accepted by those advocating health care reform, which is for the most part best pursued through a participatory, progressive politics of the common good.

Human Rights Theory, 2: What Reason Do We Have, If Any, to Take Human Rights Seriously? Beyond 'Human Dignity'

This is the second in a series of papers I plan to post in the next few months. Each paper addresses an issue, or a set of related issues, in Human Rights Theory. The overarching subject of the first two papers — of this paper and the first one — is the morality of human rights, which has become, in the period since the end of the Second World War, a global political morality. For the first paper in the series, see Michael J. Perry, “Human Rights Theory, 1: What Are ‘Human Rights’? Against the ‘Orthodox’ View” (2015), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2597403.In this paper, I pursue this inquiry: What reason (or reasons) do we have — if indeed we have any — to take human rights seriously; more precisely, what reason do we have, if any, to live our lives in accord with this imperative, which is articulated in the very first article of the foundational human rights document of our time, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and which is the very heart of the morality of human rights: “Act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood.” Of course, not all of us who have reason to live our lives in accord with that imperative — and, in so doing, to do what we reasonably can to get not only our own government but every government to conduct its affairs in accord with the imperative — have the same reason. Those of us who are religious believers may have one or another theological reason. But many of us are not religious believers.What reason do those of us who are not religious believers have, if any, to live our lives in accord with the “in a spirit of brotherhood” imperative? Probably the best known response to that question relies on a secular version of the idea of “human dignity.” However, it is far from clear, as I explain in this paper, that the secular “human dignity” response works as a reason to take seriously the morality of human rights. Be that as it may, what reason can one have if she is not only a nonbeliever but, philosophically speaking, a “naturalist” — and therefore one for whom, much contemporary moral-philosophical discourse to the contrary notwithstanding, “human dignity” is wholly unavailing as a “foundation” or “ground” for the morality of human rights?

Human Rights Theory, 1: What Are 'Human Rights?' Against the 'Orthodox' View

This is the first in a series of papers I plan to post in the next few months. Each paper addresses an issue, or a set of related issues, in Human Rights Theory. The overarching subject of the first two papers — of this paper and the next one — is the morality of human rights, which has become, in the period since the end of the Second World War, a global political morality.In this paper, I address the question “What are ‘human rights’?” Despite its ubiquity in contemporary political-moral discourse, the term “human rights” has no canonical meaning. As British philosopher James Griffin has observed, “[t]he term ‘human right’ is nearly criterionless. There are unusually few criteria for determining when the term is used correctly and when incorrectly — and not just among politicians, but among philosophers, political theorists, and jurisprudents as well.” John Tasioulas has claimed that the term has an “orthodox” meaning, which Tasioulas endorses: “rights possessed by all human beings simply in virtue of their humanity.” However, in the context of the principal contemporary discourse about human rights — discourse about international human rights — the orthodox meaning is mistaken, as I explain in this paper. I also explain here both the sense in which some human rights are legal rights and the sense in which some human rights are moral rights.Then, in the next paper, I pursue this inquiry: What reason (or reasons) do we have, if any, to take human rights seriously; more precisely, what reason do we have, if any, to live our lives in accord with this imperative, which is articulated in the very first article of the foundational human rights document of our time, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and which is the very heart of the morality of human rights: “Act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood.” See Michael J. Perry, “Human Rights Theory, 2: What Reason Do We Have, if Any, to Take Human Rights Seriously? Beyond ‘Human Dignity’” (2015), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2597404.

The Human Right to Health

AbstractIs there a human right to health? If so, what are its grounds? Can a legal or moral human right to health provide any practical guidance when it comes to making decisions about, for instance, the allocation of scarce health resources? There are many possible answers to these questions in the literature. This article surveys some of these replies. First, however, it examines the distinctions between legal and moral human rights and rights to health vs. health care. It then surveys the literature on potential grounds for a moral (and possibly legal) human right to health. It concludes by considering replies to several common objections to the existence of a human right to health.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE PRIORITY OF THE MORAL

Abstract:The main point of contention between “naturalistic” and “political” theories of human rights concerns the need to invoke the notion of moral human rights (i.e., rights that all human beings have simply by virtue of their humanity) in justifying the system of human rights included in the international practice. Political theories argue that we should bypass the question of the justification of moral human rights and start with the question of which norms and principles should be adopted to regulate the practice. Naturalistic theories, by contrast, claim that a convincing answer to the latter question will have to presuppose some answer to the former. An adequate justification of the system of human rights included in the international practice, according to naturalistic approaches, will ultimately have to rely on some appeal to moral human rights. I call this view the “Priority of the Moral over the Political.” In this essay, I argue that the Priority of the Moral is harder to dismiss than political theories of human rights suggest, and that before we can assess the plausibility of these theories, they need to say more in defense of their claim that they can do without this view. I then consider the two main objections that seem to have motivated many philosophers to abandon the naturalistic approach to the justification of human rights in favor of the political one. I conclude by suggesting that a variant of naturalistic justification, the basic-needs account, has the resources to address these objections.

Getting human rights right in global health policy

Global health policy advocates have repeatedly called for a post-2015 development agenda in which global health policy goals are embedded in a human rights framework. This appeal echoes the insistence on the part of a wide range of agents—including the UN, non-governmental organisations, governments, and ordinary citizens—that human rights should be a fundamental basis for the new development goals in general. Interpreted sympathetically, this emphasis on human rights embodies a vital insight into their distinctive moral signifi cance. The adoption of goals concerned solely with the promotion of human welfare, such as our interests in health, prosperity, and education, is not suffi cient. Human rights inject a distinctive moral dimension into policy objectives, and one that is especially responsive to the plight of victims of injustice worldwide. Human rights are universal moral rights that all people possess merely by virtue of their humanity. They mark the threshold at which each individual person’s interests generate obligations on the part of others to respect, protect, and promote those interests in various ways. The violation of an obligation is a moral wrong; however, by contrast, no wrong is committed by the mere impairment of another’s interests or by leaving them unpromoted. For example, neither beating a rival applicant for a coveted job nor failing to give someone your spare healthy kidney for a transplant necessarily involves any wrongdoing. Human rights are a distinctive moral register of critical assessment, beyond evaluations that merely track rises and falls in welfare. A well-established doctrine of international human rights law now exists. However, the morality of human rights is independent of its legal recognition. Moreover, not even a presumptive case always exists for the enactment of human rights as (enforceable) legal entitlements. Law is just one mechanism of implementation that exists alongside others, including social conventions, public opinion, and the instillation of a rights-respecting ethos. Whether or not human rights should be legalised depends on what works in all circumstances. To make human rights legally enforceable can sometimes even be counter-productive. For example, in Brazil, the legalisation of the right to health seems to have led to a transfer of health resources to the wealthier people who can aff ord the cost of litigation. Although human rights are extremely important for global health policy, in this Viewpoint we contest two widespread assumptions about their signifi cance. The fi rst assumption—exclusivity—is that human rights should be the sole or exclusive basis of global health policy. The second assumption—inclusivity—is that insofar as human rights are relevant to global health policy, they are included within the right to health. Both exclusivity and inclusivity are, we believe, highly problematic assumptions. We cannot rely exclusively on human rights to develop global health policy; and to the extent that human rights are relevant, we cannot restrict ourselves to the right to health.

Isaiah Berlin’s Pelagian Soul

This essay responds to the argument that Jonathan Riley offers in the February 2013 issue of Political Theory for rendering Isaiah Berlin’s theory of pluralism consistent with his commitment to negative liberty. I show that the “standard of humanity” that Riley attributes to Berlin fails to take account of Berlin’s distinction between “political” liberty (which has nothing to do with our humanity as such) and what Berlin calls “basic” liberty (which does). Consequently, Riley ends up conflating the conditions for living in a decent society (one which respects a minimal core set of human rights) with being a human being. And this leads him to make the further, mistaken assumption that humans need to “exercise” their generic human capacities in order to remain human and not become, in Riley’s words, “robots or moral idiots.” While Riley’s essay is a valuable contribution to our understanding of what we might call Berlin’s ethic of human rights, it ultimately fails in its effort to show that the domain of human rights constitutes Berlin’s standard of humanity (as opposed to decency), and therefore it fails to show that normal human beings must assign overriding moral priority to a modicum of political liberty in order to secure their humanity.

Adjudicating Rights-Based Constitutional Claims: The Morality of Human Rights and the Power of Judicial Review

[This piece has been superseded by Michael J. Perry, A Theory of Judicial Review (2016), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2624978.]I have recently argued, in my new book and elsewhere, that both capital punishment and excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage violate the constitutional law of the United States. See Perry, Human Rights in the Constitutional Law of the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Of course, any argument about the constitutionality of capital punishment or of excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage — or of any other law or public policy — necessarily relies on a particular understanding of how the judiciary should go about determining (1) whether a right claimed to be a constitutional right has constitutional status and, if so, (2) whether the challenged government action violates the right. What understanding do my arguments rely on — my arguments about capital punishment and same-sex marriage? I address that question in this paper.This paper began partly as a reflection on Mark Tushnet’s distinction between what he calls “pseudo-Thayerian review” and “true Thayerian review.” According to Tushnet, “[p]seudo-Thayerian review occurs when the courts ask, ‘Did the legislature make a clear error in determining — if it did — that the legislation was consistent with the Constitution as we interpret it?’ In this version, the courts make an independent judgment about what the Constitution means, and then ask whether a rational legislature could believe that the statute at issue was consistent with the Constitution so interpreted. In pseudo-Thayerian review, that is, the courts have the final (or only) say on what the Constitution means. True Thayerian review, in contrast, give the (rational) legislature a role in constitutional interpretation. The truly Thayerian court asks, ‘Putting aside our own views about what the Constitution means, could a rational legislature believe that the statute in question is consistent with some reasonable interpretation of the Constitution — again, even if that interpretation is not one that we ourselves would adopt?’” Tushnet’s distinction between “pseudo-Thayerian review” and “true Thayerian review” is too simple to do justice to the complex question of judicial deference. Or so, at least, I contend in this paper.As the title of this paper indicates, my principal concern here is the adjudication of constitutional claims based on rights norms, as distinct from the adjudication of constitutional claims based on structural norms — based, that is, on either federalism norms or separation-of-powers norms.I have recently posted two related papers to SSRN: Why Capital Punishment Violates the Constitutional Law of the United States (2013), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2340682; David C. Baum Memorial Lecture: Why Excluding Same-Sex Couples from Civil Marriage Violates the Constitutional Law of the United States (2014), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2352516.

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AS RELIGIOUS AND MORAL FREEDOM

AbstractIn another essay being published contemporaneously with this one, I have explained that as the concept “human right” is understood both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in all the various international human rights treaties that have followed in the Universal Declaration's wake, a right is a human right if the rationale for establishing and protecting the right—for example, as a treaty-based right—is, in part, that conduct that violates the right violates the imperative, articulated in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration, to “act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood.” Each of the human rights articulated in the Universal Declaration and/or in one or more international human rights treaties—for example, the right, articulated in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration and elsewhere, not to be subjected to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”—is a specification of what, in conjunction with other considerations, the imperative—which functions in the morality of human rights as the normative ground of human rights—is thought to forbid (or to require). A particular specification is controversial if and to the extent the supporting claim—a claim to the effect that the “act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood” imperative forbids (or requires)X—is controversial. My aim in this essay is to elaborate and defend a particular specification: the right, internationally recognized as a human right, to freedom of conscience—to freedom, that is, to live one's life in accord with the deliverances of one's conscience.

Interrogational Torture as a Human Rights Issue: A Brief Further Reflection on the Morality of Human Rights

The morality of human rights consists not only of various rights recognized by the great majority of the countries of the world as human rights, but also of a fundamental imperative that directs “all human beings” to “act towards one another a spirit of brotherhood.” The imperative — articulated the very first article of the foundational human rights document of our time, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) — is fundamental the sense that it serves, the morality of human rights, as the normative ground of human rights. I have explained all this at length an earlier paper, “The Morality of Human Rights” (2013), which I have posted to SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2274381.In the earlier paper, I addressed (inter alia) this question: Why should one take seriously the normative ground of human rights; that is, what reason or reasons does one have, if any, to live one’s life accord with the imperative to “act towards all human beings a spirit of brotherhood”? In this brief paper — which serves as a kind of addendum to the earlier paper — I address a version of a related, followup question: Should we want governments always to “act towards all human beings a spirit of brotherhood”, no matter what the consequences? Specifically, I address this question: Should we want governments never to subject a human being to torture, no matter what the likely consequences of not subjecting him (or her) to torture? In the earlier paper, I explained that as the concept “human right” is understood both the UDHR and all the various international human rights treaties that have followed the UDHR’s wake, a right is a human right if the rationale for establishing and protecting the right — for example, as a treaty-based right — is, part, that conduct that violates the right violates the imperative to “act towards all human beings a spirit of brotherhood”. Each of the human rights articulated the UDHR and/or one or more international human rights treaties is a specification of what, conjunction with other considerations, the imperative is thought to forbid or to require. The right at issue this paper — the right not to be tortured — is a specification of what governments must refrain from doing lest they violate the “in a spirit of brotherhood” imperative — lest they, short, treat a human being inhumanely. Torturing a human being is an instance — indeed, a paradigmatic instance — of treating a human being inhumanely. The question-in-chief this paper: Should we want governments never to subject a human being to torture, no matter what the likely consequences of not subjecting him (or her) to torture?The conclusion I reach: Even if we assume that some imaginable and sufficiently extreme circumstances it would be morally permissible — even, perhaps, morally obligatory — for government officials to subject a human being to interrogational torture, there are nonetheless conclusive reasons for lawmakers and treaty-drafters to make bans on torture exceptionless. It is optimal, all things considered, that laws and treaties do just what both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture do: make the right against torture, even interrogational torture, nonderogable. There are conclusive reasons, that is, for laws and treaties to require that governments never violate the normative ground of human rights — that governments never violate the in a spirit of brotherhood imperative, that they never treat any human being inhumanely — even if we assume that it is not the case, as a moral matter, that governments should never violate the normative ground of human rights.

Hard Cases: Philosophy, Public Health, and Women’s Human Rights

The idea of human rights has a home in multiple domains: human rights are the subject of a vibrant international activist movement, of a growing body of international law, and of a burgeoning branch of moral and political philosophy. Given this fact, how should philosophers understand the appropriate relationship between a philosophical theory of human rights and the existing international human rights practices? There is a general sense among philosophers that ‘‘human rights’’ is, as James Griffin puts it, ‘‘a theoretical term,’’ one developed (albeit without what Griffin calls ‘‘sufficient determinateness of sense’’) by political theorists and moral philosophers, and that the point of human rights law and activism is to attempt to realize the idea expressed by this term. On this view, philosophy’s contribution to existing human rights practice is to provide a theory of moral human rights – as Griffin would put it, a ‘‘completion’’ of the incomplete theoretical term. For such a purpose, philosophers only need to do the kind of theoretical work they have always done; engagement with any of the human rights practices is unnecessary. Charles Beitz, in his recent book, The Idea of Human Rights, explicitly rejects this view of what the philosophy of human rights is for; on his view, the philosophy of human rights should ‘‘treat international human rights as a normative practice to be grasped sui generis and consider how the idea of a human rights functions within it.’’ Beitz aims to develop a ‘‘practical conception’’ of human rights, according to

Freedom of Conscience as Religious and Moral Freedom

[For a later version of material in this paper, see this paper: Rights Theory, 4: Democracy Limited: The Human Right to Religious and Moral (2015), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2610942.]In a paper I posted to SSRN last month — “The Morality of Human Rights” (June 2013), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2274381, — I explained that as the concept “human right” is understood both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in all the various international human rights treaties that have followed in the Universal Declaration’s wake, a right is a human right if the rationale for establishing and protecting the right — for example, as a treaty-based right — is, in part, that conduct that violates the right violates the imperative, articulated in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration, to “act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood.” Each of the human rights articulated in the Universal Declaration and/or in one or more international human rights treaties — for example, the right, articulated in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration and elsewhere, not to be subjected to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” — is a specification of what, in conjunction with other considerations, the imperative — which functions in the morality of human rights as the normative ground of human rights — is thought to forbid (or to require).A particular specification is controversial if and to the extent the supporting claim — a claim to the effect that the “act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood” imperative forbids (or requires) X — is controversial. My aim in this essay is to elaborate and defend a particular specification: the right, internationally recognized as a human right, to freedom of conscience — to freedom, that is, to live one’s life in accord with the deliverances of one’s conscience.A more focused name for the right is the right to religious and moral freedom. Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor begin their book Secularism and Freedom of Conscience (2011) by stating that “[o]ne of the most important challenges facing contemporary societies is how to manage moral and religious diversity.” One indispensable strategy for managing religious and moral diversity is, as I explain in this essay, the right to religious and moral freedom — to freedom to live one’s life in accord with one’s religious and/or moral convictions and commitments.In the final part of the essay, I explain why we are warranted in concluding that the internationally recognized human right to freedom of conscience — to religious and moral freedom — is part of, is entrenched in, the constitutional law of the United States.The final version of this essay — which is a modest revision of a chapter in my new book, Human Rights in the Constitutional Law of the United States (2013) — will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Law and Religion.

The Morality of Human Rights

[For a later version of material in this paper, see these two papers: "Human Rights Theory, 1: What Are 'Human Rights'? Against the 'Orthodox' View" (2015), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2597403; "Human Rights Theory, 2: What Reason Do We Have, if Any, to Take Human Rights Seriously? Beyond 'Human Dignity'" (2015), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2597404.]In the period since the end of the Second World War, there has emerged what never before existed: a truly global morality. That morality — which I call “the morality of human rights” — consists not only of various rights recognized by the great majority of the countries of the world as human rights, but also of a fundamental imperative that directs “all human beings” to “act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” The imperative — articulated in the very first article of the foundational human rights document of our time, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — is fundamental in the sense that it serves, in the morality of human rights, as the normative ground of human rights.I begin, in the first section of this essay, by explaining what the term “human right” means in the context of the internationalization of human rights. I also explain both the sense in which some human rights are, in some legal systems, “legal” rights and the sense in which all human rights are “moral” rights.Then, in the longer second section, I turn to the inquiry that is my principal concern in this essay: Why should one take seriously the imperative that serves, in the morality of human rights, as the normative ground of human rights? That is, what reason or reasons does one have, if any, to live one’s life in accord with the imperative to “act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood”?This essay, the final draft of which will be published in a symposium issue of the San Diego Law Review, was my contribution to the conference on “The Status of International Law and International Human Rights” that was held at the University of San Diego School of Law on May 3-4, 2013, under the auspices of the School’s Institute of Law and Philosophy. Some of the material in this essay is drawn from my new book, Human Rights in the Constitutional Law of the United States (2013). Most of the material here that is not drawn from my book was first presented in a lecture I was honored to deliver at Santa Clara University in March 2013, under the auspices of the Bannon Institute of the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education.

Climate change and human rights

AbstractHuman rights have not played a significant role in the international law and politics of climate change to date. However, there has been increasing interest among legal scholars and moral and political philosophers in a human rights approach to climate change. This review focuses on the new literature in moral and political philosophy that has begun to explore the connections between human rights and climate change. The attractions of a human rights approach to climate change are explained. The idea of a moral conception of human rights is introduced and distinguished from human rights recognized in international and national law. The key features of moral human rights are identified and an important distinction between negative and positive rights is explained. The three main arguments in the literature connecting human rights and climate change are introduced and critical discussions of them are presented. The first argument (associated with Steve Vanderheiden) claims that there is a human right to a stable climate, which can be derived from a human right to an adequate environment. The second argument (associated with Simon Caney) claims that anthropogenic climate change violates basic human (negative) rights to life, health, and subsistence. The third argument claims that there is a human right to emit greenhouse gases. This argument has two versions. The first version claims that there is a human right to equal per capita emissions. The second version claims that there is a human right to subsistence emissions. WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:159–170. doi: 10.1002/wcc.218This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Climate Change and Global Justice Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Climate Change and Human Rights Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change

The Impacts of Terrorism and Capitalist Incorporation on Indigenous Americans

This article demonstrates the connections between terrorism, colonial state formation, and the development of the capitalist world system, or globalization, exploring the consequences of colonial terrorism on indigenous American peoples. First, the piece introduces the central argument and conceptualizes and theorizes terrorism. Second, it examines the structural aspects of colonial terrorism by connecting it to specific colonial policies and practices. Third, it explains the ideological justifications that Euro-American colonial settlers and their descendants used in committing crimes against humanity and dispossessing the homelands of indigenous Americans, as well as in amassing wealth/capital by ignoring moral, ethical, and philosophical issues and human rights.

Decolonial Strategies and Dialogue in the Human Rights Field: A Manifesto

Within the horizon of the critique of Eurocentrism, this manifesto presents methods of interpretation that can advance the project of decolonising human rights and creating new Third World discourses. These hermeneutical strategies include the re-contextualisation of human rights theory in the historical horizon of modernity/coloniality; the elaboration of alternative geographies followed by provincialising human rights; deparochialising legal theory and constructing a cosmopolitan jurisprudence; the ‘universalisation’ and ‘globalisation’ of human rights; the transnationalisation of human rights; a re-writing of the history of rights; a becoming of the Other into the Self; the critique of Critical Theory; the adoption of an ethics of emotions as an ethics of human rights; and a dialogue between different traditions and rationalities of human rights. The paper also presents concepts and ideas such as empire/suffering, modernity as crisis, the colonial origins of human rights, postmodernity as an epoch of moral sensibilisation, power/epistemology, and critical dialogue.