Abstract: This essay reviews three recent books which each provide a different account of human rights and their critics. Jean-Yves Pranchère and Justine Lacroix’s Human Rights on Trial constructs a genealogy of critiques of human rights discourse from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Joe Hoover’s Reconstructing Human Rights proposes a critically redemptive approach to human rights, pushing human rights further leftward through the resources of pragmatism and agonistic theories of democracy. But it is ultimately Ratna Kapur’s Freedom in a Fishbowl that articulates the most profound, and radical, challenge to human rights by indicting its Eurocentric notions of freedom and challenging us to engage with non-European conceptions of freedom.
This content is restricted to site members. If you are an existing user, please login. New users may click here to subscribe.
Current Issue
The latest issue of Humanity is out! Authors discuss occupied Palestine and former Yugoslavia. This volume also offers a dossier on alternative histories of the Nuremberg Trials.
View entire issue >
Save
Save
Save
📘'Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights and Decolonial Ethics' is now available for pre-order!
❕Grab your copy and save 30% OFF using the code NEW30 at checkout : https://edin.ac/3JIcRne
@HumanityJ
Login Status
If you are not a subscriber, you can sign up now.