Anne universitaire 2011/2012 Collge universitaire Semestre de printemps

The Philosophy of Human Rights Joshua Craze

Syllabus In 2003, I was sitting on the Liberia-Sierra Leone border with a former commander in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the rebel movement that fought a ten-year war in Sierra Leone and was roundly condemned by the international media for its policy of cutting off the hands of captured soldiers. As we shared a couple of beers, I asked him what had motivated his participation in the RUF. The commander looked surprised. We he said kindly, as if I were a small child, are a human rights organization. More recently, even the US Tea Party announced that it was a human rights movement; from a situation of relative invisibility sixty years ago, human rights discourse has risen to become one of the central languages of political legitimation in the contemporary world. But if no one from despotic warlords to idealistic activists is against human rights, and almost everyone supports them, do human rights have a central meaning that we can grasp? This course will analyze the philosophical foundations of human rights discourse. In doing so, it will investigate the structure of human rights claims and the normative claims put forward by the proponents of human rights. It will also address the critics of human rights who claim that they are too vague, simply a mask for imperialism, an empty ideology, or a means of disempowering the state. The point of this course is not to come down in favor or against human rights. Rather, we will clarify the role played by human rights in the contemporary world. In order to do this, our investigation will ask three questions. (1) What is the history of rights claims, and how do other forms of rights differ from human rights? (2) How can we explain human rights rise to prominence over the last sixty years? (3) What are the philosophical issues underlying contemporary debates about the position of human rights? In asking these three questions, we will analyze human rights as they emerge as the interstices of a series of different debates. To answer these questions, the course will be split into three parts. Part one will focus on a series of close readings of seminal authors, notably: Hobbes, Kant, Marx, and Rousseau. Through these readings, we will clarify the structure of natural rights claims and present some of the most influential modern theories of right. We will also examine some of the most prominent critics of these theories. This section is intended to both allow us to understand the intellectual background to human rights claims, and clarify some of the differences between rights claims made within the framework of the state and contemporary human rights claims. Part Two of the course will focus on the modern history of human rights. We will look at competing accounts of the emergence of human rights in the 20th century; the role human rights law plays in international politics, and the relationship between the emergence of human rights and changing structures of moral sentiment. Part Three of the course will then combine our philosophical and historical investigations, and turn to some of the most pressing contemporary debates about human rights, notably: the relationship between politics and human rights; the practical forms human rights discourse can justify; the relationship between humanitarianism and human rights; and whether human rights can justify intervention.

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Programme des sances (contenu et objectifs pdagogiques) : Pour chacune des 12 sances : prsentation du thme gnral, de la(les) thmatique(s), textes de rfrence, lectures prparatoires, exercices) :

1. Introductory sance The instructor will provide an introduction to the issues and themes that will be dealt with in the course.
(Recommended Reading: Samuel Moyn. Human Rights in History. The Nation. September 6, 2010. Available online here: http://www.thenation.com/article/153993/human-rights-history?page=full)

PART I: THE PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT

2. Classical Theories of Modern Natural Right Thomas Hobbes Leviathan. (Chapters 14 and 15). John Locke Second Treatise of Government. Richard Tuck Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development. (pp.119-143).
(Highly Recommended Reading: Catalin Avramescu. A Hobbesian Life Raft. In An Intellectual History of Cannibalism.)

Presentation 1 Is Hobbes a theorist of natural right? Presentation 2 Compare Hobbes and Locke on the right to resist. 3. The State as the Embodiment of Freedom Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract. Immanuel Kant Metaphysics of Morals. Presentation 1: What is the relationship between popular sovereignty and fundamental rights for Rousseau? Presentation 2: In what sense does Kants theory of the social contract draw from Rousseaus and in what sense is it different? 4. The Conservative Critique Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France. Joseph de Maistre Considerations on France. Presentation 1: Are human rights simply dangerous or also unfounded for Burke? Presentation 2: Compare the grounds for Burkes and De Maistres respective critiques of the notion of the rights of man. 5. The Socialist Critique Karl Marx On the Jewish Question. Presentation 1: What is the basis for Marxs critique of the first declarations of the rights of man? Presentation 2: What is the relation between the rights of man and full human emancipation for Marx?

PART II: THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

6. The Foundations of the Last Utopia Samuel Moyn The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History.

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Samantha Power A Problem from hell. (pp. 1-61).

(Recommended: Mark Mazower No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations)

Presentation 1 What are the principle differences between Moyns and Powers accounts of the development of human rights? Which do you find more convincing? Presentation 2 Why wasnt anti-colonialism a human rights movement? Should it have been? 7. Human Rights and International Law Martti Koskeniemi The Politics of International Law. (Part III: The Politics of Human Rights pp.131-169) James Griffin. Human Rights and the Autonomy of International Law. In Samantha Besson & John Tasioulas (eds.). The Philosophy of International Law. (pp.339-355). Presentation 1 Discuss the tensions that exist between international human rights law, national law, and national political culture. Presentation 2 Are human rights a condition or limit of politics or an effect of politics? 8. Human rights and moral sentiment Lynn Hunt Inventing Human Rights: A history. Luc Boltanski Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics. Presentation 1 Do human rights rely on a shared moral sentiment? Presentation 2 How does distance effect moral sentiment, and what effect might such distance have on the modes of action and thought available to human rights advocates?

PART III: ISSUES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

9. Rights without rights Hannah Arendt The Origins of Totalitarianism (part two, chapter nine: The Decline of the NationState and the End of the Rights of Man) Jacques Rancire Who is the subject of the Rights of Man? Presentation 1 Can there be a right to have rights? Presentation 2 What makes the concept of the refugee such a limit concept for human rights? 10. The Practice of Human Rights David Kennedy The Dark Side of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism. Michael Barnett The Empire of Humanity: A history of Humanitarianism. (Part III: The Age of Liberal Humanitarianism. Pp.161-241). Excerpt from the 2010 UN Monitoring Group Report on Somalia.
(Recommended: MSF Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience)

Presentation 1 What is the relationship between human rights discourse and humanitarianism? Presentation 2 Can human rights give us a vocabulary with which we can reflect critically upon humanitarianism? 11. The Politics of Human Rights Michael Ignatieff Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. Wendy Brown The most we can hope for Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism.

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Presentation 1 What are the principle objections to human rights to which Michael Ignatieff responds, and how successfully do you think he does so? Presentation 2 Could human rights fulfill a non-political role, and, if so, how far along the road is the contemporary human rights movement towards creating such a position. 12. Human Rights as Global Governance? Gareth Evans The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All. Talal Asad What do Human Rights Do? An Anthropological Enquiry. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. Libya. Presentation 1 Does the notion of sovereignty contained in the responsibility to protect doctrine differ markedly from state-centric doctrines of sovereignty? Presentation 2 Should gross and systematic violation of human rights (UNSC1973) by a state give another state sufficient basis to invade? If so, under what conditions?
Prsentation des modalits dvaluation :

Each session will begin with the instructor giving an introduction to the texts under consideration that week, outlining the central questions and themes in the texts, and their relevance to the broader questions this course will consider. Following the introduction, there will be two student presentations (approximately 15 minutes each), on topics relevant to the readings assigned. After the presentations, there will be a class discussion of about half an hour. Then, the instructor will provide a brief lecture bringing together the themes that have emerged from the discussion and the readings, and will introduce the texts that will be read during the forthcoming week. A further opportunity for discussion will be provided at the end. The course has three sections, and the reading for each differs slightly. In the first section, the readings will be limited to around fifty pages, and most of the class discussion will revolve around a close textual analysis of the assigned readings. Some of the second and third sections s will involve reading more historical work, which will be used as the basis for discussion, rather than being subjected to a close textual analysis. Specific page selections from the texts mentioned in the course summary will be provided during the first introductory session. Students will be evaluated on the basis of: a) b) c) d) Class presentation (20%) 3 take-home reading tests at the end of each month (10% each = 30% total) A final paper on a comprehensive topic to be agreed with the instructor (30%) Class participation (20%)

Rfrences bibliographiques :

Photocopies of all the required readings from the works mentioned above will be given out by the instructor during the first introductory session, and also uploaded online via ENTG.

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