goodhart intro

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Introduction: Human Rightsin Politics and Practice

Michael Goodhart

Chapter Contents

Why Human Rights? 2The Politics of Human Rights 4

The Practice of Human Rights 5

Human Rights as an Object of Enquiry 6

About this Book 7

Readers Guide

This chapter aims to provide the historical and conceptual background necessary for

informed critical engagement with the ideas and arguments presented throughout

this book. It begins by considering why human rights have emerged as a particularlypowerful and important moral and political discourse since the middle of the twentieth

century, stressing their modernity, their invention, and their revolutionary character. It

examines the work that human rights do in politics, explaining them as value claims

with powerful social, political, and economic implications. Next, it shows why this polit-

ical character means that human rights play out in complex and divergent ways in

practice. This makes human rights difficult to study, as they are inherently multi-faceted

and necessarily interdisciplinary. This introduction concludes with a brief overview of

the aims, structure, and objectives of the book.


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2 M. GOODHART

Consider the ollowing political events: an authoritarian

government silences a critical independent media; rural

villagers and the urban poor endure sickness caused

by the lack o clean water; criminal networks traf c

women and girls or sex; transnational corporations

shi manuacturing jobs to low-wage countries with lax

labour standards; gay men and women organize to winthe right to marry and ound amilies; reugees eeing

tribal or religious violence are denied asylum in nearby

wealthy countries; suspected terrorists are captured and

detained without trial or review; reormers organize

resistance to a repressive military regime; a bombing

campaign halts attacks on local populations by ethnic

militias; a campaign eliminates school ees and makes

education available or all. What do such disparate

events have in common? It would be dif cult to talk

about any o them without invoking human rights.

Te decades since the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights (UDHR) was approved by the UnitedNations General Assembly in 1948 have witnessed what

one writer aptly calls the rise and rise o human rights.1

Human rights have become so pervasive that it is hard

to imagine making sense o, or even talking about, the

political world without them.

Why Human Rights?

to provide the historical and conceptual background

necessary or inormed critical engagement with the

ideas and arguments presented throughout this book.

Tree related eatures o human rights deserve special

emphasis in this respect:

human rights are distinctively modern;

human rights are a political invention;

human rights are inherently revolutionary.

The Modernity of Human Rights

o say that human rights are distinctively modern is

not to deny the long history o the values that animate

them. Human rights are closely tied historically to

notions o justice and human dignity that are as old as

human social interaction itsel. o stress the modern-

ity o human rights is rather to stress two important

contrasts, one with the corporate conception o rights

that dominated medieval Europe and many other pre-

modern societies, the other with notions o justice anddignity based in religious cosmology.

Medieval conceptions o rights were anchored in

social status. Rights pertained to classes or categories

o persons rather than to individuals, and they were

strongly supportive o hierarchical notions o social

organization. Te rights one had depended upon and

varied with ones status or social position. Rights and

Te advancement o human rights to the oreront o

global politics has been as remarkable as it has been

improbable. Te UDHR, an abstract and non-binding

collection o noble words and sentiments, has engen-

dered a vast and growing body o international law that

is challenging the ideal o sovereignty and transorming

relations among states. Tis transormation includes

the creation and development o a diverse array o

international institutions concerned with human rights

monitoring, compliance, and, increasingly, enorcement.

Human rights have inspired domestic and trans-national social movements that have toppled repressive

regimes and won protection or oppressed and mar-

ginalized people; these movements have emerged as

powerul political actors in their own right. While the

idea o human rights has provoked sometimes sharp

controversy, it has nonetheless become the dominant

normative or moral discourse o global politics and a

major standard o international legitimacy. Why?

Although this text ocuses on the post-War era o

human rights and on their study within the discipline

o politics, understanding the contemporary state ohuman rights politics and practice requires some sense

o their logic and appeal. It would be impossible to

summarize the history o human rights here; instead,

in the ollowing sections I shall ocus on several essen-

tial eatures o human rights that help to explain their

emergence and their success, as well as some o the con-

troversies surrounding them. Te point o doing so is


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INTRODUCTION 3

duties dened the social roles that constituted society;

they were in this sense conservative (norm-preserving)

and stabilizing (order-preserving) eatures o society.

Rights were oen also anchored in cosmological con-

ceptions or religious views that interpreted the existing

social order as divinely orchestrated, or at least sanc-

tioned. Tat is, the organization o society, includingthe rights and duties o dierent groups o persons, was

seen as reecting a divine will or plan.

In Western Europe, where the idea o human rights

rst emerged in its modern orm, this way o viewing

society and social organization underwent a proound

and sustained transormation beginning as early as the

twelh and thirteenth centuries. Te transormation

entailed economic development, artistic and literary

renaissance, religious reormation, and intellectual

owering. ogether, these trends ostered humanism

(an emphasis on the achievements and potential ohuman beings), rationalism (an emphasis on reason and

science rather than on belie or superstition), and indi-

vidualism (a ocus on persons, rather than on groups or

classes, as the undamental constituents o society).

Modern human rights reect and embody these

humanist, rationalist, and individualist sensibilities. In

describing a set o rights that belongs to everyone they

make a powerul statement about human capabilities

and potential and assert a ar-reaching normative pro-

gramme or protecting and respecting peoples ability to

exercise those capabilities and realize that potential. Inrelying on reason as a oundation or justication, human

rights make an appeal to universality that transcends

and thus threatenstraditional values and belies.

Finally, in ascribing the same rights to all persons, the

modern conception o rights challenges conventional

understandings o social and political order.

Human Rights as a Political Invention

Tis radicalism indicates that human rights were lessthe product o evolution than invention (see Minogue,

1979). Te idea o rights in Europe can be traced back

to its origins and meanings in Roman law (uck, 1979),

but in seventeenth-century England it became a radical

and disruptive notion. Tis development would have

horried one o the key gures responsible or this

change, the political philosopher Tomas Hobbes

(15881679). Hobbes was a devoted monarchist who

tried to develop a justication or royal absolutism

that would be more persuasive than the divine right

o kings, which was increasingly under challenge rom

theologians and rebellious Parliamentarians. Hobbess

key innovation was to suggest that, in a hypothetical

state o nature beore the creation o society, all individuals should be considered ree and equal. Hobbes

believed that this natural reedom and equality would

result in chaos and war, to which an all-powerul ruler

was the logical and best solution (see Hobbes, 1968).

Although Hobbes used reedom and equality to

justiy absolute authority, others quickly saw the poten-

tial to put them to other, very dierent purposes. Te

most amous and important o them was the philoso-

pher and Whig revolutionary John Locke (16321704).

Locke saw that Hobbess arguments about natural

reedom and equality had the potential to justiy polit-ical revolution by making authority depend on the

consent o the governed (Locke, 1960). Locke under-

stood this reedom and equality in terms o natural or

human rights enshrined in natural law. Government

was established, in Lockes view, to provide means to

interpret, judge, and execute this natural lawin other

words, to protect rights. When it lacked consent or

ailed to respect and protect rights, Locke argued, gov-

ernment made itsel illegitimate and the people had the

right to replace it.

The Revolutionary Characterof Human Rights

Te revolutionary character is the third eature essential

or understanding the politics and practice o human

rights and the success and controversy they have gener-

ated. By the close o the eighteenth century, rights had

become a moral standard or assessing the legitimacy

o governmental authority and the battle cry o revo-

lutionaries in the United States, France, and Haiti. Tisrevolutionary character is inherent in the logic o rights

themselves. As Carole Pateman (1988, pp. 3940) has

argued, the simple premise o natural reedom and equal-

ity undermines justications or natural authority and

subjection: the doctrine o natural individual reedom

and equality was revolutionary precisely because it

swept away, in one ell swoop, all the grounds through


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4 M. GOODHART

which the subordination o some individuals, groups or

categories o people to others had been justied.

Tis is what Kenneth Minogue (1979, p. 11) meant

in describing human rights as the leading edge o the

axe o rationalism that toppled monarchies and cleared

the ground or democracy. Te great revolutions o the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries marched under thebanner o human rights precisely because o the power

o this argument against monarchy and aristocracy. Yet

these human rights revolutions were at best partial and

incomplete. Women, labourers, slaves, and natives in

areas subjected to European rule were denied the very

universal rights that the revolutions themselves pro-

claimed (see Pateman, 1988; Mills, 1997; Goodhart,

2005).

Tis was as the early proponents o the rights o

man had always intended. Teir cause was narrowly

political, about the empowerment o a small class olandowning gentry chang under a hereditary monar-

chy and aristocracy. Te logic o consent and natural

rights justied their revolution, but in the end it jus-

tied much more besides. Te logic o human rights

extended much urther than Locke or his contempo-

raries could have imagined or endorsed, and over time

the axe o rationalism came more to resemble a double-

edged sword, as those excluded rom enjoyment o their

rights used the logic o universality to challenge their

subjection and the hypocrisy that supported it. It is this

revolutionary potential and emancipatory logic thatmake human rights particularly appealing to people

struggling against domination and oppression and that

explain a large part o their rise and rise.

Appeal and Criticisms

Yet the universal aspiration o human rights is itsel

double-sided. Te ailure o human rights in practice to

live up to their universal promise has been the source

o much o the criticism lodged against them, and

this criticism has oen been justied. It was perectlyobvious or a long time that who qualied as human

in most conceptions o human rights was a airly

narrow group o wealthy European males. Te origins

o modern human rights in a particular Western social

context has uelled the criticism that they are an essen-

tially Western concept, one at odds with cultural and

philosophical traditions elsewhere. Tis criticism has

gained credence thanks to the invocation o human

rights in justiying all sorts o dominationrom colo-

nialism and imperialism to patriarchy, preventive war,

and the global neoliberal economic order.Yet human rights have been and remain integral to

struggles against sexism, racism, and poverty, and in

resistance to colonial and authoritarian ruleprecisely

because they challenge any arbitrary or non-consen-

sual grounds or subordination. It is precisely their

incompatibility with traditional cultures and philoso-

phies that explains their appeal to those chang under

domination and oppressionas much in the West as

elsewhere. As this suggests, human rights are inher-

ently political, and attention to their political character

and the politics surrounding them is central to under-standing their place in our world.

The Politics of Human Rights

justice, one incompatible with subordination. Tis is

why, as the images o the axe and the double-edgedsword suggest, human rights imply the levelling o trad-

itional orms o status and hierarchy.

Another way o saying this is that human rights are

values claims. Tey express a certain set o political

convictions and aspirations concerning the reedom

and equality o all people. Tis makes the politics or

o assert a human right is to make a undamentally

political claim: that one is entitled to equal moralrespect and to the social status, support, and protec-

tion necessary to achieve that respect. Tis explains

why human rights resonate with notions o justice and

human dignity that are ancient and global. Yet human

rights are not simply equivalent with human dignity

or justice; they represent a certain kind o dignity or


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INTRODUCTION 5

ideology o human rights incompatible with any system

o values that regards some persons as naturally or

divinely subordinate to others. Tis point is vital: when

opponents o human rights argue that they clash with

traditional values or cultures they are perectly correct.

o deny or downplay this clash is to miss what is

happening politically when human rights get invoked:power is being challenged, domination contested,

authority questioned. Te issue is not whether human

rights are compatible with existing belies and practices

around the world; in many instances they are not. Te

issue is rather whether one endorses the values expressed

through human rights or the values underlying belies

and practices that might conict with human rights.

Human rights can also be asserted, as I alluded to

earlier, as rhetorical or ideological cover or political

choices motivated by other considerations. Examples o

such behaviour are amiliar: European powers justied

colonial enterprises as civilizing missions; American

politicians cite human rights abuses in launching pre-

emptive military attacks. Te rejection o human rightsoen works in a similar way, as when authoritarian rulers

decry human rights as cultural imperialism to secure

their grip on power. Te important point here is that it

is impossible to understand the advantage to be gained

rom trumpeting or denouncing human rights without

understanding what various actors are doing politically

when they claim or reject themnamely, taking sides.

The Practice of Human Rights

impact on social lie, one need not nd the moral or

philosophical arguments or human rights conclusive

or even persuasive to acknowledge that human rights

practice is a signicant political phenomenon in our

world.

How widely or narrowly one reads this history o

human rights is itsel probably determined in large part

by where ones ideological sympathies lie (or a very

broad reading see Ishay (2004)). Was the democraticpolitical revolution that began with seventeenth-century

opposition to monarchy and aristocracy a human rights

movement? What about the struggles or labourers and

or abolition? Womens rights? Resistance to colonial

rule? One way to answer these questions is to try to

determine the rhetoric and belies o the participants.

Another is to argue that what the actors said or thought

is less important than the thrust and logic o their argu-

ments. Still another is to ocus on outcomes, assessing

how these movements contributed to the realization o

human rights as we understand them today. Tere is nocorrect answer to these questions, because the answers

one gives have themselves real political consequences.

Tis is, at least in part, what makes human rights

so challenging, so important, and so rewarding to

study.

Human rights are inherently political; they are values

claims, and they are embraced or contested to the extent

that those doing the embracing or contesting approve

o or benet rom the values they embody. I began this

introduction by arguing that human rights have in

eect become the coin o the realm in global politics,

the dominant normative discourse, and a benchmark

or legitimate authority. I politics represents the ace o

that coin, its ip side is the long record o human rightspractice that has developed over the past our centuries

and accelerated dramatically in recent decades. One

can no more understand human rights purely as an

abstract political idea than one can understand ootball

by reading the rulebook without watching a match.

Tis practice is evident in the history o social move-

ments, legal developments, political argumentation,

institutional consolidation, and public discourse. It

represents the real world o human rights, the empirical

record o their use by all kinds o people in varied con-

texts through time. Regardless o what one might thinko the philosophical arguments in avour o human

rights, there exists this legacy o their actual use and

eects in the world that must be reckoned with. Just as

it is perectly possible to be an atheist and still recog-

nize that religion exists and has a real and signicant


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6 M. GOODHART

Human Rights as an Object of Enquiry

movements that advocated their development. Here

things get conusing, as such questions direct us back

to considerations about what these actors thought theywere doing; why, politically, they wanted to do it; the

resulting norms to which their actions contributed;

and, whether they were right to take up this cause in

the rst place.

Despite these dif culties, some generalizations can

be made. Empirical studies o human rights, both

qualitative andquantitative, aim to help us understand

the reality o human rights politics and practice. Tese

studies might ocus on laws, movements, or institu-

tions, or on levels o achievement or violation o human

rights standards, trying to uncover the actors that con-tribute to them. Alternatively, they might seek to trace

how the discourse o human rights works to socialize

political actors through a combination o pressure and

persuasion. Or, they might study the politics o human

rights within a particular country or region, trying to

explain why certain policies or practices have emerged.

Tey might also ocus on how states and other interna-

tional actors use human rights politicallyas a tool o

oreign policy, a condition on aid, and so on.

Normative studies o human rights aim to under-

stand the philosophical bases o human rights. Teyocus on the justications given or human rights and

Human rights are an amazingly rich and complex object

o political enquiry. Teir study involves normative,

empirical, and critical approaches and has historical,sociological, anthropological, comparative, and inter-

national dimensions.

Te discipline o politics or political science is con-

cerned with the theory as well as the practice o human

rights, with the normative as well as the empirical.

Normative political theorists primarily concern them-

selves with philosophical and policy questions, while

empirical political scientists ocus primarily on trying

to understand how human rights work in the world.

Both are crucially important, and they are much more

closely related than many people seem to realize.In act, one o the chie dif culties in the study o

human rights is that the normative and the empirical

oen become blurred. Consider human rights status as

a global standard o legitimacy. Political theorists might

be concerned with the appropriateness o this standard

and with what exactly it entails. Tese normative ques-

tions are distinct rom, but closely related to, empirical

questions about how human rights came to unction

as a global standard in the rst place and how eect-

ively they work. Tese questions can be answered in

part by tracing the history o the laws and institutionsthat have evolved over time and o the social actors and

TABLE I.1 Human rights as an object of enquiry.

Empirical Normative

Scope of analysis What is; the practice o human rights in the world What ought to be; moral, philosophical, orconceptual questions about human rights

Objects of analysis Real-world phenomena, e.g. treaties and conventions,institutions, violations, enorcement, socialmovements, historical records, interviews, opinion

surveys, statistical measures

Concepts, e.g. democracy, reedom,obligation, rightsArguments, e.g. reedom requires X; one

should do Y i Z appliesAims of analysis Description or observation o what is actually

going on

Explanation o what accounts or the patterns andrelationships in our observations or predicts what islikely to occur

Clarifcation o key concepts anddenitions

Justifcation or moral argumentsthat support human rights

Moral critique or critical evaluationo existing laws, policies, andpractices on moral grounds


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INTRODUCTION 7

on the values that human rights claims embody. Nor-

mative studies might track the intellectual development

o human rights arguments, clariy concepts (such as

reedom), or try to justiy a particular way o under-

standing the human rights or the obligations they entail.

Tey might also critique (endorse or criticize) past or

present practice on moral grounds (see able I.1).Legal and policy approaches draw on the norma-

tive and the empirical. One can study the law rom

an empirical point o view, emphasizing its content,

development, and enorcement, or rom a normative

perspective, emphasizing its moral character and its

interpretation. Similarly, one can try to understand the

eects o existing policy or predict the eects o a new

policy by relying on empirical analysis, and one can

argue or or recommend new policies because o their

moral virtues or eects. In practice elements o the nor-mative and the empirical are combined in much o the

research on human rights.

About this Book

human rights politics and practice. Trough the use

o varied and extensive case studies, these chaptersprovide resh insights into important issues while also

providing students with clear examples o how schol-

ars undertake research on human rights. Te chapters

were all purpose-written or this text by an impres-

sive group o international scholars o human rights.

Tese chapters are representative; they address impor-

tant themes and issues in the contemporary study

o human rights, but they do not exhaust the list o

important issues and themes.

Te chapters reect a variety o perspectives on human

rights; there has been no attempt to have the authorsrely on a standard denition o human rights and no

requirement that they hold any particular views about

them. Te chapters also contain signicant overlap,

with numerous themes, cases, treaties, and institutions

being mentioned in several chapters. Tis diversity and

overlap are intentional and serve an important peda-

gogical purpose, illustrating that there is no one way to

understand human rights or to study them.

Tis book attempts to provide a comprehensive intro-

duction to the politics and practice o human rightsrom a political perspective. It has two principal aims:

to introduce students to human rights, both within

the discipline o political science and in the politics

and practice o our world;

to provide detailed treatment o some key issues

in contemporary human rights in ways that

simultaneously illuminate those issues and illustrate

the approaches that political scientists use in

studying them.

Te book is divided into two parts that reect thesecomplementary objectives. Part I comprises seven

chapters showcasing the state o the art o the study o

human rights within political science. Tese chapters

introduce the main approaches to the study o human

rights as a political phenomenon and survey the key

ndings they have yielded. Tese chapters also high-

light the primary challenges and controversies involved

in the study o human rights.

Part II comprises thirteen thematic chapters written

to investigate important topics in contemporary

NOTE

1. Kirsten Sellars (2002). The Rise and Rise of Human Rights. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing.


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8 M. GOODHART

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