Rescuing Human Rights
A Radically Moderate Approach

Focuses on understanding human rights as they really are and their proper role in international affairs.

Hurst Hannum (Author)

9781108405362, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 February 2019

240 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.37 kg

'… an informative, well-crafted scholarly exploration that aims to rescue international human rights law from overzealous human rights advocates, regarding desirability of interpretations, strategies of human rights application, and consequences of rights enforcement … Hannum has illuminated and sharpened these and related questions in a clearly written, self-styled 'pragmatic' approach. In this well-documented inquiry, he is clear about his aim to warn against the overextension of human rights law into areas of human harms and state policy where it does not belong, while preserving its legal authority and necessity in areas where it does … Hannum frames his distinctions between appropriate and overreaching applications of human rights law in a well-documented survey of contemporary human rights legal trends and issues … Hannum takes us on a well-organized journey of doctrine, sources, precedents, and 'realistic' interpretations of human rights law flowing in its appropriate riverbed, setting out his 'radically moderate approach' to rescuing human rights law … Rescuing is a richly sourced, well written, provocative argument about the best formulation of 'limits' of modern human rights law. It deserves serious reading.' Henry J. Richardson III, American Journal of International Law

The development of human rights norms is one of the most significant achievements in international relations and law since 1945, but the continuing influence of human rights is increasingly being questioned by authoritarian governments, nationalists, and pundits. Unfortunately, the proliferation of new rights, linking rights to other issues such as international crimes or the activities of business, and attempting to address every social problem from a human rights perspective risk undermining their credibility. Rescuing Human Rights calls for understanding 'human rights' as international human rights law and maintaining the distinctions between binding legal obligations on governments and broader issues of ethics, politics, and social change. Resolving complex social problems requires more than simplistic appeals to rights, and adopting a 'radically moderate' approach that recognizes both the potential and the limits of international human rights law, offers the best hope of preserving the principle that we all have rights, simply because we are human.

Preface
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction: assumptions and principles
2. Crime and (occasional) punishment
3. The importance of government, for better or worse
4. Human rights and … whatever
5. Undermining old rights with new ones: you can't always get what you want
6. Women, sex, and gender
7. The flexibility of human rights norms: universality is not uniformity
8. Human rights hawks
9. The indispensable state? The United States and human rights
10. The way forward: less is more
Index.

Subject Areas: Human rights & civil liberties law [LNDC], International human rights law [LBBR], International law [LB], Human rights [JPVH]