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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.

Drawing on research relating to the Australian Federal Parliament, this chapter examines the argument that the new statutory bills of rights encourage parliaments to play a more significant role in the protection of rights. It identifies a number of constraints on the capacity of parliamentarians to undertake serious rights-based scrutiny of legislation, such as the lack of time, resources and expertise, the impact of party discipline in small legislatures, and the dominance of the executive. It reports the strong views of parliamentarians that parliaments can and should have a significant role in the protection of human rights and be able to resist the pressure to trust the executive on civil liberties. The chapter argues that empowering political representative is a crucial ingredient in the promotion of the political protection of human rights, and indicates some ways that this objective could be better achieved through the use of electronic technologies in accordance with ideas concerning e-democracy, including direct public input into public policy-making. More speculatively, the chapter suggests that parliamentary representation might be reformed to provide for a more team-based approach that could utilize a broader variety of talents.

Rights are an inextricable part of contemporary domestic and international legal speech. They appear in political manifestoes and professional vocabularies and they are used to defend agendas of reform and retrenchment alike. The idiom of (subjective) rights has a long pedigree in Western legal and political thought. But its content and significance have varied by reference to the needs of the moment. Recently, efforts have been made to contextualize the use of rights as part of Western politics and law. This suggests viewing the expansion of rights-talk as inextricable from the globalization of Western political ideas and the universalization of typical Western preferences. This chapter examines some of those uses. The idea is not to find the “origin” of rights (for there is no such single origin) but to enquire into the meaning, power, and limits of a ubiquitous form of politico-legal speech.

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.

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.

The central finding of this book is that women negotiate rights in India not by performing victimhood but by becoming capable: deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves. The conclusion considers the benefits and drawbacks of women’s capability. The author juxtaposes this citizenship model to victimhood, discussing how capability may create openings for women while simultaneously forcing them to take on a new dangerous burden of labor. The author ends by theorizing the broader implications of her findings and discussing why rights continue to matter to people when criminal justice institutions deny them justice.

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.

It is only by stepping out of ‘human rights’ that we can properly see what is involved in claiming them. Both our rights, and we ourselves, are the product of history, a history of language that is at the same time a history of politics and conflict.

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.