Human Rights as Ethics, Politics, and Law

Abstract

This study offers a critical approach to the connections between the law, politics, and morality as they figure in human rights discourse. It argues that human rights must be understood – ethically, politically, and legally – through the prism of reasonable skepticism towards the legitimacy of contemporary institutions for the protection of human rights. The colonial legacy of human rights, the lack of transparent principles for dealing with conflicting rights, and the counterproductive overemphasis upon the importance of legal instruments are considered as offering serious challenges to the lasting legitimacy of human rights. These challenges are analyzed by means of selected human rights-related cases as well as theoretical discussion.