Summary: The politics of human rights, Paul Gready

Profile/Background of the author:

About the author

Dr. Paul Gready works as a professor and as the Director of the Centre for Applied Human
Rights at the University of York. His research interests include Human Rights Practice,
Transitional Justice, Human Rights and Development, Culture and Human Rights, and
Human Rights cities. Most of his current research focuses on the development of critical and
constructive alternatives to the mainstream. Gready also has a wide-ranging experience as a
human rights consultant in Amnesty International and has authored and co-authored multiple
peer-reviewed scientific papers and presented works at many national and International
conferences. His contributions have acclaimed recognition from honorable subject experts
around the world. He is now actively associated with different societies and academies. His
academic career is decorated with several reputed awards and funding.

Abstract (Laura)

The subject of politics and human rights its’ filled with pessimism, narrowness, and sense of
closure. The article examines instead what an enabling vision of the politics of human rights,
a ‘principled’ politics of human rights, should look like.

The article goes through 3 commentaries, to end by outlining an alternative politics of human
rights.

Three commentaries (Aurora)

→ The first commentary is about “The Politics of Human Rights: A Global Perspective”,
Tony Evans: the author emphasizes power relations and the legitimation of dominant
interests. Central arguments are 1) the human rights violations due to the structures of the
global political economy and 2) that human rights now legitimate the economic actors and
practices of globalization rather than protecting the vulnerable. The book criticizes the human
rights delivery capacity of the state and international human rights law. In analyzing the
relationship between free trade and liberal democracy and human rights, the dominant agents
of globalization (e.g.: financial institutions, multinational corporations) have forged a
compact of rights without responsibilities. Trade has become a major source of human rights
violations. He also questions the democracy-human rights nexus. Liberal democracy at a
national level is not enough to protect human rights if we consider the decline in state
capacity of guardian and provider of these rights: there is a need for new forms of global
democratic governance. Democracy in Evans seems to be not a substitute or guarantor of
human rights. He affirms that politics identifies the gap between rhetoric and reality but he
fails to acknowledge the moral value of struggles for political and social justice throughout
history. The tension between ideals and reality is not only a source of despair but also of
action and mobilization. Evans’ arguments are repetitive and leave little space for positive
considerations. There is a top-down vision among globalization and human rights and the
vulnerable in this view have little agency of their own. Evans claims not to reject the idea of
universal human rights, and his book according to Gready is essentially deconstructive and
could be taken as a classic example of politics of human rights as a closure, as a dead end. It
eliminates every possibility of resistance.
→ In August 2001, The Economist, in “The politics of human rights” an article accompanied
by a special report presents the result of an Amnesty International meeting in Dakar, Senegal,
in which the objective was to consider a mandate expansion into the area of economic, social
and cultural rights. The opposition to this idea is that this would cause a politicization of
human rights. Citing Michael Ignatieff and others, arguments provided for addressing
economic and social rights include that certain basic needs should be treated as human rights
(e.g.: economic and social catastrophes can wipe out civil and political gains and
infrastructures + civil and political rights are not always sufficient to prevent such catastrophe
+ framing assistance as a legal obligation may mobilise more of an international response).
→ Makau wa Mutua in an article entitled “Politics and human rights: an essential symbiosis”
identifies human rights as a political ideology and not as non-ideological. He argues that
human rights and Western liberal democracy are inextricably linked. Human rights require
that the world be remade in a Western image, also in terms of politics. Wa Mutua calls for a
multicultural approach to reform the human rights regime to make it more universal, and
more truly to embrace diversity and difference. According to Gready much of this analysis is
true and requires more investigation, also “ Do human rights synchronise with or conversely
exclude certain ideologies and political systems? According to Gready, there are some
controversial statements in wa Mutua analysis, in particular, that non Western appropriations
have been characterized by mimicry rather than innovation or that leading human rights
organizations set out “with the express intent of promoting certain basic Western liberal
values – now dubbed (know/called) human rights – throughout the world, and especially the
non-Western world.”. Considering the claim for pluralism, there is no indication that many
NGOs engage in dialogue and cultural adaptation as a matter of basic good practice. Gready
asks: rather than grand calls for reform, would it not be more productive to identify processes
through which reinterpretations are already taking place? He agrees in many ways with Evans
and wa Mutua but what finds problematic and frustrating about the analyses is the narrowness
and sense of closure. Part of the politics of human rights is generalized as a whole and there
is no way forward practically and politically provided.
→ More wideranging is the analysis of Ignatieff’s Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry: he
acknowledges that human rights are political. He links the politics of human rights primarily
to conflict and human rights abuse in the current global order. In his vision the intersections
between individual human rights, collective rights to self-determination, the stability of the
nation-state system and the demands for or the right of international intervention cause
political tensions. He defines human rights as a form of “disciplined partiality” providing a
framework and language for dialogue. These are claimed as political since they do not
provide non-political/non-negotiable moral absolutes, instead a discourse for the
determination of conflict, a framework for negotiation. Conflict is between competing rights
rather than between right and wrong. Two further political points are underlined by Ignatieff:
first that there are situations of war and human rights abuse in which strong states and
stability matter more than democracy and justice. Human rights will remain unprotected
without stable states. He sees constitutionalism as the way of taking democracy beyond the
majority tyranny and protecting human rights in multi-ethnic states. Also, having considered
this, with weak states also comes weak constitutionalism. In certain discussions on human
rights about globalization and fragmentation the state is often dismissed as being increasingly
irrelevant, in others the reverse is true. Furthermore, the (non)-interventions in the name of
human rights are making matters worse, undermining the legitimacy of human rights.
According to the author, human rights interventions should usually be limited by the norm of
informed consent so as to avoid charges of moral imperialism. Human rights can justify
strong intervention where states collapse or systematically violate the rights of their citizens.
This is the cause and the origin of political failure which is undermining the legitimacy of
human rights, raising the charge of moral imperialism. Although his analysis seems more
negative it is a more open and dynamic one compared with the others.

Human rights, revolution, ideology (Asiia)

Greedy states that human rights represent the most dynamic political ideology and dominant
moral vocabulary which appeared to be the most influential movement in the second half of
the 20th century. Though human rights is quite a controversial topic that has its strong and
weak sides due to its political openness (= anyone can refer to human rights in order to
achieve his/her political objectives, i.e. human rights = a weapon or means).

Talking about the history of human rights, Gready refers to its origin from the revolutionary
movements. Here he examines two concepts:

1) Stephen Marks’ view of human rights through historical events:

● 1st generation of civil and political rights due to the French and American
revolutions in the end of the 18th century;
● 2nd generation of social and economic rights due to the socialist revolution in the
beginning of the 20th century;
● 3rd generation of solidarity rights (which include the rights to development, a
healthy and ecologically balanced environment, to peace, to ownership of the
common heritage of humankind) due to the anti-colonial revolutions in the first half
of the 20th century.
 2) Ignatieff’s concept of human rights: Ignatieff argues that the main challenge to human
rights’ universality is not cultural but from the powerful, and as a result, the conflict
over the universality of human rights is a political struggle. human rights as a
political struggle of victims who are powerless but can gain power through struggle
and challenge. Rights doctrines arouse opposition because they challenge sources of
power. Universality, therefore, cannot imply equal consent in a world of unequal
power, Here Gready repeats Ignatieff’s statement about the human rights’ universality
(‘Human rights are universal because they define the universal interests of the
powerless’), which further in the paper is opposed to relativism.

Another important aspect that Gready arises is the ideological meaning of human rights,
‘layers of ideological meaning’, and an attempt of different political ideologies to use human
rights in order to achieve their aims. Gready sets two critical approaches - Marxism and
postmodernism - to illustrate this idea. Both approaches were speculative about human
rights as the product of local power relations, historically and culturally situated.

Both Marxism and postmodernism can be seen to engage with the debate between
universalism and relativism of human rights.

They also engage with the binaries that are central to the creation of knowledge and meaning
in Western thought, in human rights and elsewhere, binaries that as a result have become
crucial fault-lines within rights discourse and practice which establish meaning through
opposition and hierarchy

The author draws the attention to the fact that Marxist and postmodernist approaches were
focused on different oppositions: Marxism was more interested in reordering the relationship
between dominant human rights binaries: rights and duties; individual rights and collective
rights or society, the individual and the state, civil/political and socio-economic rights.
Whereas postmodernism deconstructs the way in which human rights binaries and hierarchies
are invested with oppositional values and, thereby, with relations of power creates the
potential for different ways of conceptualizing, and acting on, human rights concerns.

Marxism: Human rights, in this context, is the product of and serves the dominant class
interests of capitalism and the bourgeoisie who control the means of production. Claims to
neutrality and universality conceal this fact and stabilize the status quo. By purportedly
providing mechanisms of participation, arbitration and compromise, rights encourage
evolutionary change rather than revolution. But in an example of rights as a double-edged
weapon they are reworked by Marxism, as we will see, as an agent of class struggle, partisan
and strategic, a means to an end, in the service of its ideology.

Post-modernism: Postmodernism argues that human rights masks its power dynamics
behind value-free notions of rationality, objectivity, impartiality and universality, Human
rights here acknowledges the fluidity and contested nature of nation-state boundaries, cultures
and identities, the limits to the possibility of solidarity between diverse peoples, and becomes
a means of managing dialogue and difference. There are tensions here between an assertive
relativism and the universalisms of dialogue and difference

Coming to the conclusion Gready again underlines the idea of human rights as revolution and
human rights as ideology used by the political actors the way they like it. This makes human
rights ‘an inconsistent, selective and inaccurate’ tool. Though human rights cannot be seen as
non-political, there should be found ways to distinguish between, and register publicly,
legitimate and illegitimate interpretations and uses of human rights.

Ngos and politics

A distinction should be made between politicisation of human rights and politics of human
rights.

1. Politisation of human rights simply appropriates and co-opts human rights to sectional
agendas, most damagingly those of the powerful.
2. Politics of human rights acknowledges that working on principles is political and must
use, capitalise on and insert relevant agendas and strategies into political process
when opportunities and openings arise.
● By engaging more in politics, human rights actors will be better placed to demand a
more responsible politics from others, Therefore, it is argued that the success of NGO
is in the non-political context. However, author argues that NGOs need to embrace
the concept of politics, to acknowledge and seek to enhance the ways in which it can
further principled goals.
● It is necessary for developing criteria of adjudicating responses to secessionist claims
or developing criteria for and priorities in relation to prosecutions and defining
victims—to acknowledge that rights clash and that ways have to be found to
adjudicate such conflicts.
● After the atrocities and mass human rights violations, in the space provided by
democratisation and political transition, political developments provide an opening for
justice but politics also determines the limits of justice.
● For lawyers and human rights activists this raises particular dilemmas: rather than
assert a norm or ideal that must be implemented—in this case the absolute
requirement of justice—there is a need to choose the best course of action from a
range of imperfect solutions, in a context (fragile democracy, scarce resources,
compromised judiciary and so on) in which each solution has its price.
● Author suggests that for successful prosecutions the question of timing is crucial. The
role of NGOs is to create, identify and take advantage of the proper timing -
respective political context.
● Besides, there is also the vexed question of selection. - Whom to prosecute, if the
opportunity arises. Human rights must side with the victims but also address the
difficult question of who should be defined as a victim and how different kinds of
 victims should be prioritised and provided with redress in a context of limited
resources.
● Therefore, Law making is also a political process. Human rights and politics are
tightly interrelated.

Conclusion (Laura)

How can we explain and address the gap between political practice and skeptical political
theory characterizing contemporary human rights?

- Inform the theory with the practice

- Invitation to engage, envision evolution of change

Political openness of HR (and NGOs) requires a ‘principled politics’ embracing full range of
HR: siding with victims, need to adjudicate legitimate and illegitimate uses and clashes of
rights, to make moral and policy compromises and decisions, etc. HR is political, and for it,
rights will have to be fought for. HR is many-edged weapon in current international politics
and must be ensured that its progressive edge remains sharp.