This book describes how human rights have given rise to a vision of benevolent governance that, if fully realised, would be antithetical to individual freedom. It describes human rights’ evolution into a grand but nebulous project, rooted in compassion, with the overarching aim of improving universal welfare by defining the conditions of human well-being and imposing obligations on the state and other actors to realise them. This gives rise to a form of managerialism, preoccupied with measuring and improving the ‘human rights performance’ of the state, businesses and so on. The ultimate result is the ‘governmentalisation’ of a pastoral form of global human rights governance, in which power is exercised for the general good, moulded by a complex regulatory sphere which shapes the field of action for the individual at every turn. This, unsurprisingly, does not appeal to rights-holders themselves.
Table of Content
Introduction 1 Solipsism and imperialism 2 Between
nomos and
telos 3 Human rights’ directing idea 4 The governmentalisation of global human rights governance 5 Tactics rather than laws 6 Nothing but rejoicing Conclusion Index
About the author
Darrow Schecter is Professor in Critical Theory and Modern European History at the University of Sussex
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