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This contribution engages with the current wave of fundamental critiques of human rights by both the populist political right and different quarters of the academy, a predicament Philip Alston has dealt with extensively in his recent interventions and which to him represents an unprecedented danger as much to human rights work as to the causes that motivate it. The chapter analyses these critiques as part of the broader crisis of the neoliberal world order and maps out their different intellectual trajectories and potential consequences not just for human rights but also for political agency and social transformation. It sets out the need to defend human rights in a way that takes these critiques seriously, yet also highlights the continuing relevance of and, indeed, necessity for human rights as one of the primary discourses for emancipation and social transformation.

This chapter explores the tensions between the normative ideal of human rights and the facts of asymmetric power. First, it reconstructs and assesses important power-related worries about human rights. These worries are sometimes presented as falsifying the view that human rights exist, or at least as warranting the abandonment of human rights practice. The chapter argues that the worries do not warrant such conclusions. Instead, they motivate the identification of certain desiderata for the amelioration of human rights practice. The chapter identifies twelve such desiderata. Second, this chapter proposes a strategy for satisfying these desiderata. In particular, it suggests some ways to build empowerment into the human rights project that reduce the absolute and relative powerlessness of human rights holders, while also identifying an ethics of responsibility and solidarity for contexts in which power deficits will not dissolve. Power analysis does not debunk the human rights project. Properly articulated, it is an important tool for those pursuing it.

One putative test for human rights is feasibility. This chapter questions the merits of this test. First, it distinguishes two different notions of feasibility. One is that of in principle practicability. The other is that of easy present practicability. Both of these notions are distinct from the broader notion of in principle possibility. Second, the chapter argues that there are reasons to be sceptical about the easy-practicability notion of feasibility. Third, it shows that, to the extent that feasibility (i.e. in principle practicability) is a credible test for human rights, it must take a non-state-centred form that highlights the role that international institutions now play in human rights protection.

This commentary focuses on two elements of Gilabert’s argument. These are, first, the account of and treatment of the question of the ‘existence’ or otherwise of human rights, and second, the use of an intentionalist analysis of power. In both of these cases, matters seem to be more complicated than the argument fully acknowledges.

This chapter initially disputes Brownlee’s claim that because human rights are ideals, they cannot be subject to feasibility requirements. The chapter goes on to consider an alternative, more complex interpretation of Brownlee’s claim: that because human rights’ ideality is compatible with human rights guiding action and bearing practical importance, there is no reason for the theorist to commit herself to feasibility conditions on human rights. Assessing the plausibility of this claim draws the chapter into methodological debates relevant to the evaluation of the rival ‘political’ and ‘orthodox’ views of human rights. It shows that the ‘orthodox’ approach best supports Brownlee’s complex argument against feasibility conditions.