Sociology of Human Rights
2009-10
Module Code: SO2
Website: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/sociology_of_human_rights
Convenor: Professor Robert Fine
Email: robert.fine@warwick.ac.uk
Room: B1.37
Seminar tutor: Rodrigo Cordero
Email: R.A.Cordero-Vega@warwick.ac.uk
Room: R3.19
The framework of the module in ten points
1. This is a new module. Its aim is to introduce students to what is emerging as a new
field in the discipline of sociology: inquiry into the idea and experience of human
rights. There is a huge amount written on the topic of human rights within the
disciplines of law, politics, philosophy and to a lesser extent history. There is,
however, far less work on human rights that is explicitly done within the field of
sociology.
2. Today human rights constitute a sub-section of law and legal scholarship in which
lawyers can specialise. The normative justification of human rights has been widely
discussed by philosophers and political theorists as well as lawyers. Human rights are
also widely discussed by citizens as part of the cut and thrust of political argument.
This module opens up the question of what role there is for sociology and social
theory more broadly in understanding human rights. As for the future, my hunch is
that we shall find a lot more literature with ‘sociology of human rights’ or the like in
their titles. The main reason for the growing interest in the idea of human rights
within sociology has to do with the changing nature of society, where it seems that
human rights have become a far more prominent feature of the social and political
landscape than in the past. The idea of human rights has a long prehistory – ever
since legal personality became in principle a universal property of all human beings
and no longer represented a privileged status opposed to that of slaves, servants and
other dependents. This was a modern development and according to Hegel I one of
the defining principles of modernity.
3. The pre-history of human rights was most manifest in the 18th century
enlightenment when ‘natural right’ philosophies came to the fore. It was then picked
up in a more political way in the declarations of the ‘rights of man’ that marked the
revolutions in France, America, Poland, Haiti and doubtless other places too. There is
lots of literature on the idea of the rights of man and on the role it played in relation
not only to citizens but also to foreigners, blacks, slaves, women, Jews and the
working class. Some of the literature emphasises the universalistic hope embodied in
the rights of man; while some emphasises the silences and exclusions that were
practiced and the difficulties encountered in addressing these exclusions.
4. By the pre-history of human rights I refer, then, to the emergence of the idea of
the ‘rights of man’ in 18th century enlightenment thought, its application in and to
the French, American and other revolutions, the exclusions and silences concealed
beneath its veneer of universality, and the efforts of radical thinkers and movements
to overcome these exclusions and silences and extend the rights of man to women,
slaves, colonial subjects, Jews and the working class. It includes in particular the
philosophical endeavour represented in Kant’s cosmopolitan writings to realise the
promise of universality implicit in the idea of the rights of man and counteract the
forces of nationalism and imperialism. This pre-history is important for our
understanding of human rights not only because it paved the way for their
development but also because the ideas of ‘human rights’ and ‘rights of man’ are too
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often collapsed into one another. It may be more important than we think to
address the distinction between them.
5. The most common narrative in historical accounts is that in the 19 th century the
idea of human rights went on the back burner with the rise of nationalism,
imperialism and modern forms of state power. According to this narrative human
rights are a reconstruction of the rights of man, the evolution of which was halted
for a couple of hundred years and only revived after the Second World War. It is said
that the rights of man were a child of the 18th century but could not survive in the
face of the modern bureaucratic state, colonial expansion, new forms of nationalism,
antisemitism and racism, mechanised warfare and the displacement of large sections
of the world population. The decline of the rights of man in the two hundred years
that followed their ‘declaration’ is a crucial part of their history, though not everyone
of course succumbed to the prevailing winds of nationalism. What is perhaps most
notable is how far the rights of man were re-channelled into the right of nations to
self-determination.
6. It wasn’t clear after 1945 whether the idea of human rights would be a 15 minute
wonder expressing the aspirations of enlightened intellectuals but without any real
staying power, or would become one of the enduring features of the postwar age.
One might have been forgiven for thinking that the rise of human rights was merely
a transitory moment of enlightenment enthusiasm since they seemed to retreat
rapidly with the re-emergence of modern statism in the shape of the Cold War, anticolonial struggles in the Third World, bureaucratic domination in the Eastern bloc
and social struggles for full employment and a welfare state in the Western bloc. This
seemed to leave little space for the idea of human rights. To the best of my
knowledge, for example, little reference was made to the idea of human rights in the
context of the Vietnam War or the British war against the Mau Mau in Kenya or the
anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
7. On the other hand, the institutions and conventions of human rights and
humanitarian law have taken off apace in the international arena. We need only
think of the Nuremberg Tribunal (1945), the International Court of Justice
(1946), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), the European
Convention on Human Rights (1950), the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (from 1966), the Vienna convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), the
United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment (1987), the ad hoc tribunals for war crimes committed in the
former Yugoslavia (1993) and Rwanda (1994), and the International Criminal Court
(2002). The norms contained in these treaties, conventions and declarations are
frequently broken, but what is new is that they exist. They have had a major
impact on the domestic constitutions of nation states and transnational federations
such as the European Union, and have been supported by civil society associations
like Amnesty International. Especially since the fall of the Soviet Union and end of
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the Cold War in 1989, it is arguable that world society cannot be understood without
reference to the idea of human rights.
8. So the object of sociological knowledge we shall address is an emergent property
of the modern world. Its existence is made objective in texts, treaties, conventions,
constitutions, courts, social movements and NGOs. It is also present in discourses in
the public sphere. The idea of human rights is not, then, a mere idea or abstract
ideal, but a definite social form characteristic of our own age. The sociology of
human rights is the study of this social form: its emergence and development, its
uses and abuses, its functions for capitalist economy, its place within the structure of
modern society as a whole.
9. It is not easy to define what sociology does in relation to human rights, which is
different from what law, politics and philosophy do. What is at issue is not only a
question of definition but of investigation and exploration. At the start it may be
easier to say what sociology does not do. A. It is not a natural law theory that
determines what human rights ought universally to be and then assesses the laws
and institutions of particular societies according to this standard. B. It is not a legal
positivism that simply describes or at best orders what human rights law is. C. It is
not a moral philosophy designed to justify human rights or the societies that produce
them. D. It is not a political realism that declares power to be the only reality and all
notions of right to be illusions that ought to be dispelled. If we accept that the
sociology of human rights is none of these things, we may have made our first step
toward finding out what it is.
10. Sociologists and social theorists have explored such questions as the increasing
centrality of human rights both in national constitutions and in expanded forms of
political community such as the European Union; the application of human rights
principles and laws beyond the boundaries of nation states, the responsibilities of
power to prevent or stop atrocities occurring in other nation states, the
constitutionalisation of international law, and the rhetoric of human rights in
political argument. These substantive discussions raise historical questions about the
emergence of human rights; conceptual questions concerning the relation of human
rights to other forms of right, including civil, political and social rights; normative
questions concerning the right of all human beings to have rights; and critical
questions concerning the legitimacy of human rights. It seems to me important to
draw on the resources of the sociological tradition in order to develop the sociology
of human rights as a field within the larger discipline.
Module requirements
The module is assessed by unseen examination and / or assessed essay. Students are
expected to participate in all seminars and to present, individually or jointly, at least
one seminar paper in each of the first two terms. Students are expected to write at
least one class essay. Students are encouraged to develop their own research
interests in the area of the sociology of human rights.
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There is no single text book for the module but among good or useful books you
may wish to beg, buy or borrow are:
Arendt, Hannah (1977) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Penguin
Arendt, Hannah Arendt (1988) The Portable Hannah Arendt, Penguin, ed. Peter Baehr
Baxi, Upendra (2009) The Future of Human Rights Oxford University Press
Benhabib, Seyla (2004) The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens Cambridge
University Press
Bhambra, Gurminder and Shilliam, Robbie (eds) (2009) S ilencing Human Rights:
Critical Engagements with a Contested Project, Palgrave
Brunkhorst, Hauke (2005) Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community.
MIT Press
Clapham, Andrew (2007) Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press
Donnelly, Jack (2006) International Human Rights Westview Press
Douzinas, Costas (2007) Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of
Cosmopolitanism Routledge-Cavendish
Fine, Robert (2007) Cosmopolitanism, London: Routledge
Fine, Robert (2002) Democracy and the Rule of Law: Marx’s Critique of the Legal Form,
Blackburn Press
Fine, Robert (2001) Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt Routledge
Freeman, Michael (2002) Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Key Concepts)
Cambridge: Polity
Habermas, Jürgen (2006) Times of Transitions Cambridge: Polity
Habermas, Jürgen (2006) The Divided West Cambridge: Polity
Habermas, Jürgen (2001) The Postnational Constellation, Polity Press
Hirsh, David (2003) Law against Genocide: Cosmopolitan Trials, Glasshouse Press
Hunt, Lynn (2007) Inventing human rights: a history, W.W. Norton,
Hunt, Lynn The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History (The
Bedford Series in History and Culture) Palgrave MacMillan 1996.
Ignatieff, Michael Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, The University Center for Human
Values Series
Ishay, Micheline (2008) The History of Human Rights: From Ancient times to the
Globalization Era, University of California Press.
Kant, Immanuel (1991) Kant: Political Writings, Edited by Hans Reiss, Cambridge University
Press
Koskenniemi, Martti. 2002 The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International
Law Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures. Cambridge University Press.
Morris, Lydia (ed) (2006) Rights: Sociological Perspectives Routledge
Morris, Lydia (2010 forthcoming) Asylum, Welfare and the Cosmopolitan Ideal: A Sociology of
Rights, Glasshouse Press
Muthu, Sankar (2003) Enlightenment against Empire Princeton University Press
Sands, Philippe (2006) Lawless World: Making and Breaking Global Rules Penguin
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Course Outline
Autumn Term 2009-10
HISTORY AND THEORY
WEEK 2: The Idealism of Human Rights
I am going to initiate our investigation into the sociology of human rights with a
discussion of the recent turn in sociology toward cosmopolitanism. The
cosmopolitan imagination is important for us because the idea of human rights plays
such a central role in its thinking about society. However, the cosmopolitan
understanding of human rights itself splits along two paths. It appeals to the idea of
human rights either to endorse what already exists or to construct a visionary
programme for changing the world. Today both approaches are present in the study
of human rights: one basically elevates existing human rights law into an ideal; the
other turns human rights into a vision of a new world order. One is conservative and
tend toward legal positivism; the other is radical and tends toward moral idealism. I
shall argue that the difficulties associated with both approaches point toward an
understanding of human rights that is more contradictory and sociologically
grounded.
Core reading
Fine, Robert (2008) ‘Cosmopolitanism and human rights: radicalism in a global age’,
Metaphilosophy 40(1): 8-23.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122208363/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Background
Baxi, Upendra (2009) The Future of Human Rights, Oxford: OUP; Chapter 1: ‘An age
of human rights?’
Douzinas, Costas (2007) Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of
Cosmopolitanism, London: Routledge-Cavendish; Chapter 1: ‘The end of human
rights?’
Freeman, Michael (2002) Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Key
Concepts), Cambridge: Polity.
Ishay, Micheline (2008) The History of Human Rights: From Ancient times to the
Globalization Era, California: University of California Press; ‘Preface to the 2008
edition’ and Chapter 6: ‘Promoting human rights in the 21st century: the changing
arena of struggle’.
Clapham, Andrew (2007) Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: OUP
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Donnelly, Jack (2006) International Human Rights (Dilemmas in World Politics),
Boulder: Westview Press.
Ignatieff, Michael (2001) Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
WEEK 3: The Realism of Human Rights
The promise of universalism present in the idea of human rights seems to supersede
national citizenship as the basis of rights claims and bring the idea of rights to its
logical conclusion. Its understanding, however, presents peculiar difficulties for the
discipline of Sociology. The overriding temptation has been toward what we might
call rights-scepticism, for example, through the reduction of rights to power or the
dismissal of rights as froth on the surface of society. It would appear that Sociology is
uncomfortable with the concept of rights and especially with the concept of
universal human rights. This scepticism has been questioned in recent sociology
where the social and cultural foundations of human rights have been revisited in
terms of recognition, sympathy and solidarity.
Core reading
Marshall, T. H. (1950) Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Turner, Bryan (1993) ‘Outline of a theory of human rights’, Sociology 27 (3): 489-511.
http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/3/489
Morris, Lydia (ed.) (2006) Rights: Sociological Perspectives, London: Routledge;
especially pp.1-16 and 77-93, but also articles by Elson, Busfield and Ruzza.
Fine, Bob (2002) Democracy and the Rule of Law, Blackburn Press; Chapter 2: ‘Marx’s
critique of classical jurisprudence’ pp. 66-85; Chapter 4: ‘Law, state and capital’ pp.
95-121; Chapter 7: ‘20th century theories’ pp. 155-189
Background reading
Fine, Robert (2003) Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt, London: Routledge;
Chapter 5 ‘Right and value: the unity of Hegel and Marx’
Fine, Robert (2009) ‘Marx’s critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’ in Andrew Chitty
and Martin McIvor Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy, Palgrave, pp. 105-120.
Bobbio, Norberto (1995) The Age of Rights, Cambridge: Polity.
Morris, Lydia (2010 forthcoming) Asylum, Welfare and the Cosmopolitan Ideal: a
Sociology of Rights, London: Glasshouse.
Morris, Lydia (2003) ‘Managing contradiction: civic stratification and migrants’
rights’, International Migration Review 37 (1): 74-100.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30037819
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Soysal, Yasmin (1994) Limits of Citizenship. Migrants and Postnational Membership
in Europe, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Waters, Malcom (1996) ‘Human Rights and the universalisation of interests’
Sociology 30 (3): 593-600. http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/30/3/593
Turner, 1997, ‘A neo-Hobbesian theory of human rights: a reply to Waters’, Sociology
31 (3): 565-571. http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/31/3/565
WEEK 4: Promises, promises: Revolution and the Idea of the Rights of Man
The idea of the ‘rights of man’ was a product of an 18th century international
movement which called itself the Enlightenment. It then played a pivotal political
role, inter alia, in the French, American and Haitian revolutions. It promised
something I think was new in human history: the idea that every human being is a
possessor of rights. Although the rights of man contained in practice all manner of
exclusions, the universal scope of the idea prepared the ground for its extension to
excluded categories: such as women, criminals, the mad, blacks, slaves, the
colonised, the propertyless, Jews, etc. We shall focus, then, not only on the concept
of the rights of man but also on the political practices associated with it. Finally we
shall open discussion on where the idea of the rights of man went wrong: whether
this was the result of external forces or something intrinsic in the idea itself. Our way
into these questions is through a somewhat eccentric historical monograph by Lynn
Hunt called Inventing human rights.
Core reading
Hunt, Lynn (2007) Inventing human rights: a history, New York: W.W. Norton;
‘Introduction’; Chapter 1: ‘Torrents of emotion: reading novels and imagining
equality’; Chapter 2: ‘Bone of their bone: abolishing torture’; Chapter 3: ‘They have
set a great example: declaring rights’; Chapter 4: ‘There will be no end of it: the
consequences of declaring’; Chapter 5: ‘The soft power of humanity: why human
rights failed, only to succeed in the long run’.
Background reading
Hunt, Lynn (1996) The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary
History, Palgrave MacMillan.
Muthu, Sankar (2003) Enlightenment Against Empire, Princeton: Princeton University
Press; Chapter 3: ‘Diderot and the evils of empire’ pp. 72-121.
Brunkhorst, Hauke (2005) Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal
Community, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT; Chapter 3: ‘The ideas of 1789: patriotism of
human rights’.
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Bhambra, Gurminder (2007) Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the
Sociological Imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave; Chapter 5: ‘Myths of the modern
nation state – the French Revolution’
Buck-Morss, Susan (2000) ‘Hegel and Haiti’, Critical Inquiry 26 (4): 821–65.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1344332
Kristeva, Julia (1991) Strangers to Ourselves, New York: Columbia University Press;
Chapter 7: ‘On foreigners and the Enlightenment’.
Foucault, Michel ‘The body of the condemned: torture’ in Discipline and Punish: The
Birth of the Prison
WEEK 5: Universalising the Rights of Man: Kant’s Cosmopolitan Point of View
Kant was a foremost philosopher of the last years of Enlightenment. His political
essays were written late in life around the time of the French Revolution. He was
alert to the national limitations of the rights of man, namely that in theory they
belonged to all human beings but in practice were enforced through the nation
state. Before the revolution he formulated the idea of cosmopolitan right to address
this problem. After the revolution, when the rights of man had often declined into
terror, militarism and nationalism, he developed this idea in a number of political
essays, including ‘Perpetual peace’, and in his book The Metaphysics of Morals
(section on ‘The metaphysical elements of the theory of right’). Kant’s radical
thinking is now influential in current debates. His work in this area is published in
Kant, Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (CUP) and is worth reading as a whole.
Core reading
Kant, Immanuel (1991) Kant: Political Writings, Edited by Hans Reiss. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press; ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’ pp. 93 - 130.
Muthu, Sankar (2003) Enlightenment Against Empire, Princeton University Press;
Chapter 5: ‘Kant’s anti-imperialism’ pp. 172-209.
Background reading
Fine, Robert (2007) Cosmopolitanism, London:
‘Cosmopolitanism and Natural Law: Kant and Hegel’.
Routledge;
Chapter
2:
Benhabib, Seyla (2004) The Rights of Others, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Chapter 1: ‘On hospitality: re-reading Kant’s cosmopolitan right’.
Habermas, Jürgen (1999) ‘Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace: At Two Hundred Years’
Historical Remove’ in J. Habermas The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political
Theory Cambridge: MIT; and in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds)
Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.
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Archibugi, Daniele (1995) ‘Immanuel Kant, cosmopolitan law and peace’, European
Journal of International Relations 1 (4): 429-456.
http://ejt.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/4/429
Cavallar, Georg (1999) Kant and the Theory and Practice of International Right,
Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
WEEK: 6 Reading and Researching Week
Week 7 The rise and fall of the rights of man: Hannah Arendt’s genealogy
After the fall of Nazism Arendt re-addressed Kant’s concerns regarding the
relationship between the nation state and the rights of man in a chapter of her book
on The Origins of Totalitarianism. There has been much debate around this
influential work but the basic thesis is that the tensions between the universality of
the idea of the rights of man and the national framework within which it is put into
practice came sharply to the fore with the development of imperialism and the
decline of the nation state from its original republican conception to an increasingly
nationalistic practice. Arendt subsequently developed this thesis in her study of
revolutions, where she argued (following Marx) that the turn to terror in the French
Revolution was theoretically foreshadowed in the Rousseauian theory of the
‘general will’ that the revolutionaries reconstructed. The political implications Arendt
drew from her analysis can be grasped in ‘Thought on politics and revolution’ in
Crises of the Republic.
Core reading
Arendt, Hannah (1979) The Origins of Totalitarianism, Harcourt Brace; Chapter 9: ‘The
decline of the nation state and the end of the rights of man’ pp. 267-302; extract in
Peter Baehr (ed.) The Portable Hannah Arendt Penguin, 2000, pp. 31-48.
Arendt, Hannah (1988) On Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin; Chapter 2: ‘The
social question’; extract in Peter Baehr (ed) The Portable Hannah Arendt Penguin, pp.
247-277.
Arendt, Hannah (1969) Crises of the Republic, ‘Thoughts on Politics and Revolution’,
Harvest, pp.199-233.
Background
Fine, Robert (2001) Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt. London: Routledge;
Chapter 6: ‘Totalitarianism and the rational state’ and Chapter 7: ‘State and
revolution revisited’.
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Benhabib, Seyla (2004) The Rights of Others, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Chapter 2: ‘The right to have rights: Hannah Arendt on the contradictions of the
nation state’, pp. 49-70.
Bhambra, Gurminder and Shilliam, Robbie (eds). Silencing Human Rights: Critical
Engagements with a Contested Project, London: Palgrave, pp. 1-60.
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, ‘Absolute freedom and terror’
Kedourie, Elie (1993) Nationalism, Oxford: Blackwell; Chapters 1 and 2.
WEEK 8: The Rise and Fall of the Rights of man: A case study of the Jewish Question
The so-called ‘Jewish question’ offers an interesting example of the equivocalities of
the rights of man. On the one hand, the French Revolution brought about the
emancipation of Jews in France – I think for the first time in Europe. On the other,
the course of Jewish emancipation was extremely uneven with opposition coming
both sides of the political spectrum – the Left and the Right. One of the notable
features of the classics of Sociology, including Marx, is that they fought against
antisemitic views of the world and sought to understand antisemitism as a misplaced
radicalism closely associated with the devaluation of the rights of man. It is argued
by some commentators (e.g. Altglas 2009) that resentment against Jews increased
with emancipation and that this phenomenon is explicable in general sociological
terms. I shall probably refresh this part of the reading list as I learn more about it.
Core reading
Marx, Karl ‘On the Jewish Question’ in L. Colletti (ed) Marx’s Early Writings, Penguin.
Alexander, Jeffrey (2006) The Civil Sphere, Oxford University Press; Chapter 18: ‘The
Jewish Question: Antisemitism and the Failure of Assimilation’.
Arendt, Hannah (1979) The Origins of Totalitarianism Harcourt Brace; Chapter 1:
‘Antisemitism as an outrage to common sense’ pp. 3-10, and Chapter: 2 ‘The
equivocalities of emancipation’ pp. 11-28; extracts in Peter Baehr (ed.) The Portable
Hannah Arendt Penguin, 2000, pp. 75-103.
Background reading
Bernstein, Richard (1996) Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question, Massachusetts,
MIT; Chapter 3: ‘Statelessness and the right to have rights’.
Hunt, Lynn (1996) The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary
History, Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 48-50 and 86-100.
Hertzberg, Arthur (1990) The French Enlightenment and the Jews: The Origins of
Modern Antisemitism, New York: Columbia University Press; Chapter 9: ‘The men of
the Enlightenment’ and Chapter 10: ‘The revolution’.
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Traverso, Enzo (1994) The Marxists and the Jewish Question: History of a Debate
1843-1943, Humanity Books; Chapter 1: ‘Marx and Engels’
Johnson, Paul (1994) A History of the Jews, New York: Harper & Row; Chapter 5:
‘Emancipation’, pp. 341-357
Carlebach, Julius (1978) Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Judaism, Littman
Library of Jewish Civilisation; Chapter 7: ‘The radical challenge to Jews’ and Chapter
8: ‘The Marxian response’, pp. 125-186
WEEK 8: Punishing Crimes Against Humanity: The Beginnings of the Human
Rights Revolution?
The human rights revolution was kick-started in the course of the Second World War
by responses to the experience of Nazism (and to a lesser extent Stalinism). Amongst
the first manifestations of this revolution was the establishment of crimes against
humanity as an offence in international law that enabled the prosecution of heads of
state for crimes for crimes that violate the conscience of humanity – even if they are
legal in terms of domestic laws. The conception of the idea of ‘genocide’ and then
the passing of the Genocide Convention were roughly coeval developments. These
innovations, which were triggered in part by the Holocaust, broke new ground
inasmuch as they sought to make human rights into something tangible that no
power could overrule with impunity. The rise of this human rights framework is
explored through the legacy of the Nuremberg Tribunal and then the trial of Adolf
Eichmann in Jerusalem. However, the development of the Cold War and of new
forms of nationalism place a question mark over how far it succeeded in holding
accountable the most violent abuses of power. We shall take off again from a
reading of the work of Hannah Arendt.
Core reading
Arendt, Hannah (1977) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,
Harmondsworth: Penguin; Chapter 15: ‘Judgment, appeal, execution’ pp. 234-252;
‘Epilogue’ pp. 253-279
Arendt, Hannah (2005) Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954: Formation, Exile, and
Totalitarianism, New York: Schocken; ‘Organised guilt and universal responsibility’ and
‘The aftermath of Nazi rule’.
Background reading
Fine, Robert (2007), Cosmopolitanism, London: Routledge; Chapter 6:
‘Cosmopolitanism and punishment’.
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Fine, Robert (2000) ‘Crimes against humanity: Hannah Arendt and the Nuremberg
Debates’, European Journal of Social Theory 3(3): 293-311.
http://est.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/3/3/293
Fine, Robert (2001), ‘Understanding evil: Arendt and the final solution’ in Maria Pia
Lara (ed.) Rethinking Evil: Contemporary Perspectives, LA: University of California
Press, pp. 131-150
Fine, Robert and Hirsh, David (2000) ‘The decision to commit a crime against
humanity’, in Margaret Archer and Jonathan Tritter (eds) Rational Choice Theory:
Resisting Colonisation, London: Routledge.
Jaspers, Karl (1961) The Question of German Guilt, New York: Capricorn.
Jaspers, Karl (2006) ‘Who should have tried Eichmann?’, Journal of International
Criminal Justice, 4 (4): 853-858. http://jicj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/4/4/853
Norrie, Alan (2008) ‘Justice on the Slaughter-Bench: The Problem Of War Guilt In
Arendt And Jaspers’, New Criminal Law Review 11(2): 187-231. http://0heinonline.org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=h
ein.journals/bufcr11&id=191
Douglas, Lawrence (2001) The Memory of Judgement: Making Law and History in the
Trials of the Holocaust, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Deak, Istvan (1993) ‘Misjudgment at Nuremberg’’, New York Review of Books, 7
October pp. 46-52.
Kirchheimer, Otto (1969) Political Justice, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mazower, Mark (1998) The Dark Continent: Europe’s 20th Century
Harmondsworth: Penguin; Chapter 6: ‘Blueprints for the golden age’, pp. 184214
Levy, Daniel and Sznaider, Natan (2002) ‘Memory Unbound. The Holocaust and the
formation of Cosmopolitan Memory’, European Journal of Social Theory 5 (1): 87106. http://est.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/1/87
WEEK 9: From Human Rights to Humanitarian Military Intervention: The
Cosmopolitan Vision of Jürgen Habermas
No social theorist has sought to explore the ramifications of the human rights
revolution with as much rigour and imagination as Jürgen Habermas. He has traced
the increasing centrality of rights in domestic constitutions in a theory of
‘constitutional patriotism; the expansion of this theory beyond the boundaries of the
nation state in his work on the postnational constellation and particularly on the
problems facing the new Europe; the application of human rights beyond the
boundaries of the nation state in his discussion of the responsibilities of power to
prevent or stop atrocities occurring in other states; and the theorisation of human
rights in his discussion of the constitutionalisation of international law. No one can
begin to address this topic now without coming to terms with his work. We shall
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touch on some aspects of this voluminous work, in particular the uses and abuses of
human rights in addressing the question of humanitarian military intervention and
the rhetoric of human rights and humanitarian law in current political argument.
Core reading
Habermas, Jürgen (1999) ‘Bestiality and Humanity: A war on the border between
legality and morality’, Constellations 6 (3): 263-72. http://0www3.interscience.wiley.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/cgibin/fulltext/119088507/PDFSTART
Habermas, Jürgen (2006) The Divided West, Cambridge: Polity, Chapters 1 and 2 pp.
1-36 and Chapter 8: ‘Does the constitutionalisation of international law still have
a chance?’
Background reading
Habermas, Jürgen (2006) The Postnational Constellation, Cambridge: Polity
Habermas, Jürgen (2006) Time of transitions, Cambridge: Polity; Chapter 2: ‘From
power politics to cosmopolitan society’ pp. 19-30
Habermas, Jürgen (2003) Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen
Habermas and Jacques Derrida, ed. Giovanna Borradori, Chicago: University of
Chicago
Fine, Robert (2007) Cosmopolitanism, London: Routledge; Chapter 3:
‘Cosmopolitanism and political community’; Chapter 4: ‘Cosmopolitanism and
international law’; Chapter 5: ’Cosmopolitanism and humanitarian military
intervention’, pp.39-95.
Rawls, John (1999) The Law of Peoples, London: Harvard University Press.
Pogge, Thomas (2001) ‘Rawls on International Justice’, The Philosophical Quarterly,
51(203): 246-253. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2660572
Bohman, J. 2007. Democracy Across Borders: From Demos to Demoi. Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press.
Benhabib, Seyla (2004) The Rights of Others, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Chapter 3: ‘The Law of Peoples, distributive justice, and migrations’.
WEEK 10
Revision, catching up, questions, discussion of research, essay writing,
where are we now.
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Spring Term 2010
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
**This is a highly provisional reading list for the second term. The focus will be on
contemporary issues and will be finalised in the course of the first term**
WEEK 1: Is There a Crisis of Human Rights? Thinking with Hauke Brunkhorst
Hauke Brunkhorst argues that there is currently emerging a legitimacy crisis of
human rights. We shall look at his rich and interesting argument.
Core reading
Brunkhorst, Hauke “Cosmopolitanism and Democratic Freedom.” Paper presented at
Onati Institute for Sociology of Law conference “Normative and Sociological
Approaches to Legality and Legitimacy,” 24– 25 April, 2008
WEEK 2: Is there a ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and if there is, whose
responsibility is it? State power and Humanitarian Military Intervention
Core reading
Young, Iris Marion (2003) ‘Violence Against Power: Critical Thoughts on Military
Intervention’ in D. K. Chatterjee and D. E. Scheid (eds.) Ethics and Foreign
Intervention, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, William (2007) 'Anticipating a Cosmopolitan Future: The Case of Humanitarian
Military Intervention', International Politics, 44 (1): 72-89. http://0-www.palgravejournals.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/ip/journal/v44/n1/pdf/8800159a.pdf
Background reading
Ferrara, Alessandro The Force of the Example: Explorations in the Paradigm
of Judgment, New York: Columbia University Press; Chapter 7: ‘Enforcing
human rights between Westphalia and cosmopolis’
Zolo, Danilo (2002) Invoking Humanity: War, Law and Global Order, London:
Continuum.
Wheeler, Nicholas. (2000) Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in
International Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Roth, K. (2004) ‘War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention’, Human Rights Watch,
http://hrw.org/wr2k4/download/3.pdf
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Walzer, Michael (2000) Just and Unjust Wars New York: Basic Books.
Krisch, Nico (2002) ‘Legality, Morality and the Dilemma of Humanitarian
Interventions after Kosovo’, European Journal of International Law 13 (1): 323-335.
http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/1/323
Falk, Richard (1999) ‘Kosovo, World Order, and the Future of International Law’,
American Journal of International Law 93 (4): 847-857.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2555350
Brown, Chris (2003) ‘Selective Humanitarianism: In Defence of Inconsistency’, in D. K.
Chatterjee and D. E. Scheid (eds.) Ethics and Foreign Intervention, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Booth, Ken (2001) ‘Ten Flaws of Just Wars’ in K. Booth (ed.) The Kosovo Tragedy: The
Human Rights Dimension, London: Frank Cass.
Archibugi, Daniele (2004) ‘Cosmopolitan Guidelines for Humanitarian Intervention’,
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29 (1): 1-22.
http://www.danielearchibugi.org/downloads/papers/Humanitarian_intervention.PDF
Fine, Robert (2007) Cosmopolitanism, London: Routledge; Chapter 5:
‘Cosmopolitanism and humanitarian military intervention’, pp. 78-95
WEEK 3: Should Tyrants be Prosecuted? State Power and International Criminal
Justice
Core reading
Hirsh, David (2003) Law against Genocide: Cosmopolitan Trials, Glasshouse Press;
Chapter 4: ‘Peace, security and justice in the former Yugoslavia’ and Chapter 5: ‘The
trials of Blaskic and Tadic at the ICTY’.
Koskenniemi, Martti (2002) ‘Between impunity and show trials’, Max Planck
Yearbook of United Nations Law 6(1): 1-32
www.mpil.de/shared/data/pdf/pdfmpunyb/koskenniemi_6.pdf
Background reading
Robertson, Geoffrey (2006) Crimes against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice
Harmondsworth: Penguin
Sands, Philippe ed. (2003) From Nuremberg to the Hague: the Future of International
Criminal Justice, Cambridge: CUP
May, Larry (2005) Crimes against Humanity: a Normative Account, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
May, Larry (2006) ‘Crimes against humanity’ Ethics and International Relations
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WEEK 4: How Does International Law Work? The Dialectics of Law and Power
Core reading
Koskenniemi, Martti (2009) ‘Miserable Comforters: International Relations as New
Natural Law’, European Journal of International Relations 15(3): 395–422.
http://ejt.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/3/395
Fine, Robert (2010) ‘Political argument and the legitimacy of international law: A
case of distorted modernisation?’ in Chris Thornhill and Samantha Ashenden (eds)
Normative and Sociological Approaches to Legality and Legitimacy.
Background reading
Krisch, Nico (2004). “Imperial International Law”, Global Law Working Paper
01/04.
http://www.law.nyu.edu/global/workingpapers/2004/ECM_DLV_015797
Koskenniemi, Martti (2001) The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of
International Law, 18 70–1960, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sands, Philippe (2006) Lawless World: Making and Breaking Global Rules.
Harmondsworth: Penguin
Bowring, Bill (2008) The Degradation of the International Legal Order: The
Rehabilitation of Law and the Possibility of Politics. London: Glasshouse.
2008
Miéville, China (2005) Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of
International Law, Leiden: Brill.
Kumm, M (2004) ‘The Legitimacy of International Law: A Constitutionalist
Framework of Analysis’, European Journal of International Law 15(5): 907- 931.
http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/5/907
Zolo, Danilo (2002) ‘A Cosmopolitan Philosophy of International
Law? A Realist Approach’, Ratio Juris 12 (4): 429–44.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119083202/abstract
Anghie, Antony (2004) Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of
International Law Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
WEEK 5: Human Rights and Empire: The Dialectics of Universality and
Difference
Core reading
Kapur, Ratna (2005) Erotic Justice: Law and the New Politics of
Postcolonialism, Glasshouse Press; Chapter 4: ‘The tragedy of victimisation
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rhetoric: resurrecting the ‘native ‘ subject in international / postcolonial
feminist legal politics’
Background reading
Kapur, op.cit; Chapter 5: ‘The other side of universality: cross-border
movements and the transnational migrant subject’
Ferrara, Alessandro The Force of the Example: Explorations in the Paradigm
of Judgment, New York: Columbia University Press; Chapter 6: ‘Exemplarity
and human rights’
WEEK 6: Reading and Researching Week
WEEK 7: The Politics of Human Rights: A Case Study of the Israel-Palestine
Conflict
Core reading
Habibi, Don (2007) ‘Human Rights and Politicised Human Rights: A Utilitarian
Critique’, Journal of Human Rights 6(1):3–35.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14754830601098410
Background reading
Cocks, Joan (2009) ‘Is the right of sovereignty a human right? The idea of
sovereign freedom and the Jewish state’, in Gurminder Bhambra and
Robbie Shilliam (eds) Silencing Human Rights: Critical Engagements with a
Contested Project, Palgrave
WEEK 8: Critical Criticism and Human Rights
Core reading
Douzinas, Costas (2007) Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of
Cosmopolitanism, London: Routledge-Cavendish.
Background reading
Agamben, Giorgio (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Balibar, Etienne (2004) ‘Is a Philosophy of Human Civic Rights Possible?’, South
Atlantic Quarterly 103 (2–3): 311–22.
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http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/south_atlantic_quarterly/v103/103.2balibar.h
tml
Zizek, Slavoj (2005) ‘The Obscenity of Human Rights: Violence as Symptom’,
http://www.lacan.com/zizviol.htm
Rancière, Jacques (2004) ‘Who is the subject of the rights of man?’, South Atlantic
Quarterly 103 (2–3): 297-310. http://saq.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/103/23/297
Douzinas, Costas (2000) The End of Human Rights: Critical legal thought at the end of
the century, Oxford: Hart
Zizek, Slavoj (2005) ‘Against Human Rights’ New Left Review 34 (July–August).
http://www.newleftreview.org/?getpdf=NLR26805&pdflang=en
WEEK 9: Critical Theory and Human Rights: The (Lost) Legacy of Marx
Core reading
Fine, Bob (2002) Democracy and the Rule of Law , Blackburn Press; Chapter 2:
‘Marx’s critique of classical jurisprudence’ pp. 66-85; Chapter 4: ‘Law, state and
capital’ pp. 95-121; Chapter 7: ‘20th century theories’ pp. 155-189
Fine, Robert (2009) ‘Marx’s critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’ in Andrew Chitty
and Martin McIvor, Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy, Palgrave, pp. 105-120.
Background reading
Fine, Robert (2003) Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt, London: Routledge;
Chapter 5: ‘Right and value: the unity of Hegel and Marx’
Pashukanis, Evgeni (1989) Law and Marxism: A General Theory, London: Pluto. Also
available at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/pashukanis/1924/law/index.htm
Baynes, K (2000) ‘Rights as Critique and the Critique of Rights: Karl Marx, Wendy
Brown and the Social Function of Rights’, Political Theory 28(4): 451-468.
http://ptx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/4/451
Benton, Ted (2006). ‘Do we need rights? If so, what sort’ in Morris, Lydia (ed) Rights:
Sociological Perspectives, London: Routledge pp. 21-36
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Summer Term 2010
WEEK 1: Toward a Social Theory of Human Rights: An Open Discussion
WEEK 2: Revision Class
WEEK 3: Revision Class
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