Three Perplexities of Human Rights Theory
(2024) p.75-80- Abstract
- Proceeding from Gregor Noll’s work on human rights and the undocumented migrant worker – where human rights law is analysed as a perplexing empirical phenomenon in order to understand a bit better why things are as odd as they are – you might easily feel discouraged by the difficulty of it all. Or, you might feel liberated, free to go on an open-ended excavation. This chapter takes that second route to ponder three perplexities for human rights theory. They are: The first perplexity is prompted by the fact that we write about human rights in the plural. Are we concerned with one concept, one unified phenomenon, or are we dealing with a motley bunch of things that are deemed to be particularly important and desirable? The second and related... (More)
- Proceeding from Gregor Noll’s work on human rights and the undocumented migrant worker – where human rights law is analysed as a perplexing empirical phenomenon in order to understand a bit better why things are as odd as they are – you might easily feel discouraged by the difficulty of it all. Or, you might feel liberated, free to go on an open-ended excavation. This chapter takes that second route to ponder three perplexities for human rights theory. They are: The first perplexity is prompted by the fact that we write about human rights in the plural. Are we concerned with one concept, one unified phenomenon, or are we dealing with a motley bunch of things that are deemed to be particularly important and desirable? The second and related perplexity concerns what human rights are (or is?) if they are beyond law. The third perplexity focuses on the human rights subject, specifically two components that are presumed in the politico-ethical notion of the human rights subject: is the evaluative component that human rights subjects are equal in their entitlements to rights (whatever rights are or whatever rights there are), and the agentive component that rights bearing posits you as a politico-legal agent, both in the sense that you can make claims and act on rights, and that you are an agent to whom rights-delivering institutions are accountable. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/0efd935a-abad-4828-9ecf-dc6aedf35cc2
- author
- Halldenius, Lena LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-03-08
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- human rights
- host publication
- The Significance of Gregor Noll
- editor
- Brännström, Leila ; Parsa, Amin and Gunneflo, Markus
- pages
- 75 - 80
- ISBN
- 9789152794043
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Greger Noll (festskriftsföremål)
- id
- 0efd935a-abad-4828-9ecf-dc6aedf35cc2
- date added to LUP
- 2024-12-17 11:19:36
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:06:24
@inbook{0efd935a-abad-4828-9ecf-dc6aedf35cc2,
abstract = {{Proceeding from Gregor Noll’s work on human rights and the undocumented migrant worker – where human rights law is analysed as a perplexing empirical phenomenon in order to understand a bit better why things are as odd as they are – you might easily feel discouraged by the difficulty of it all. Or, you might feel liberated, free to go on an open-ended excavation. This chapter takes that second route to ponder three perplexities for human rights theory. They are: The first perplexity is prompted by the fact that we write about human rights in the plural. Are we concerned with one concept, one unified phenomenon, or are we dealing with a motley bunch of things that are deemed to be particularly important and desirable? The second and related perplexity concerns what human rights are (or is?) if they are beyond law. The third perplexity focuses on the human rights subject, specifically two components that are presumed in the politico-ethical notion of the human rights subject: is the evaluative component that human rights subjects are equal in their entitlements to rights (whatever rights are or whatever rights there are), and the agentive component that rights bearing posits you as a politico-legal agent, both in the sense that you can make claims and act on rights, and that you are an agent to whom rights-delivering institutions are accountable.}},
author = {{Halldenius, Lena}},
booktitle = {{The Significance of Gregor Noll}},
editor = {{Brännström, Leila and Parsa, Amin and Gunneflo, Markus}},
isbn = {{9789152794043}},
keywords = {{human rights}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{03}},
pages = {{75--80}},
title = {{Three Perplexities of Human Rights Theory}},
year = {{2024}},
}