Sociology and the Two Faces of Human Rights

Abstract

This article begins with a reference to Turner and Water's debate over a foundational versus constructionist approach to human rights. Noting some scope for complementarity between the two, it moves on to consider a different divide; human rights discourse as the driver of expressive and expansive social movements; and human rights practice as deployed in the interests of power and control. The former is explored in relation to rights, recognition and 'cosmopolitanisation', and the latter in relation to closure, deficit and false universals. A return to the classics is suggested as one route to furthering analysis and understanding of both perspectives.

The idea of philosophical sociology

“…We surely have to confront the relativistic challenge that comes from the fact that, as all social institutions, human rights are socially constructed (Anleu ; O'Bryne ). And there is also the problem of their insufficient practical purchase and only partial success in terms of their own normative standards (Morris ; Nash ). The key here is that the criticisms we raised against non‐normative conceptualizations of the social apply equally to non‐normative ideas of human rights; as they cannot be justified on purely particularistic grounds (Waters ), their universalistic justifications must become ever more sophisticated (Donnelly ; Young ).…”

The Creation of New Rights by the Food Sovereignty Movement: The Challenge of Institutionalizing Subversion

“…Building alliances globally with indigenous groups in the South, consumers in the North, agricultural and industrial workers all around the globe will certainly be critical to advance the proposed new rights, from above (through constitutional changes, public policies, institutions) and/or from below (through alternative food and farming practices). But building alliances may become useless if too much of the movement’s rights rhetoric revolves around peasants’ distinctiveness, and their quest for recognition (Morris, 2010: 324). Then, Vía Campesina might be confronted with a lesson already learned by others: rights, when framed as absolutist claims, may inhibit the necessary political dialogue with other fragments of society (Glendon, 1991: 18).…”

“…It discusses the advantages and constraints of the human rights framework before analysing the creation of new human rights by Vía Campesina as a way to overcome the limitations of the ‘rights master frame’ (Benford and Snow, 2000: 619). In doing so, it emphasizes the crucial role of social movements in ‘shaping the outcome of political deliberation over rights’ (Morris, 2010: 323). It then explores efforts made by Vía Campesina to institutionalize new rights and become involved in the very definition of rights, following in the footsteps of indigenous peoples (Short, 2009: 104).…”

Constructing Rights and Wrongs in Humanitarian Action: Contributions from a Sociology of Praxis

“…We position ourselves in the sociology of rights (Anleu, 1999; Hynes et al, 2010; Morris, 2010; Sen, 2004; Sjoberg et al, 2001; Somers and Roberts, 2008; Turner, 1993) that builds on the basic premise that most internationally designed bodies of rights are not enforceable in a legal sense – there is no body to investigate and impose legal sanction in cases of breaches of refugee law – and therefore only become ‘alive’ through interpretation and realisation in everyday practice. There is an emerging literature on how human rights are interpreted locally where they rarely find outright rejection or adoption, but are co-opted or blend into local norms and values (Archibald and Richards, 2002).…”

“…The happy coalition between human rights and IHL was short lived and changed dramatically with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq following the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Since the start of the global ‘war on terror’, the ‘other face’ of human rights (Morris, 2010) as an opportunity for western powers to ‘intervene in the Third World under the auspices of the United Nations’ (Turner, 1993: 499) resurfaced in more raw and naked forms. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were partly legitimated with human rights arguments, to protect women from Taliban oppression and Iraqi people from Saddam’s atrocities.…”