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Available open access digitally under CC-BY licence.
Human rights are often presented as a choice between universal principles and critiques that expose their limitations. This book challenges that divide.
Bringing together postcolonial, cultural relativist, collective rights-based and feminist perspectives, Janne Mende examines some of the most influential critiques of human rights universalism while affirming the aspiration of universal human rights for all. She develops a concept of mediated universalism that takes critique seriously without abandoning universality, holding competing perspectives in productive tension and using their insights to reshape our understanding of universal human rights.
Offering a nuanced and innovative contribution to contemporary human rights theory, the book shows how universalism can be rethought, particularly amidst the current transformation of global order.
1. Introduction
2. Human Rights and the Global Order
3. The International Human Rights Framework
4. The Mediated Approach
5. The Charge: ‘Human Rights Are Western.’ The Postcolonial Critique of the Western Universalism of Human Rights
6. The Charge: ‘There Is No Universalism.’ The Cultural Relativist Critique of the Abstract Universalism of Human Rights
7. The Charge: ‘Human Rights Threaten Cultures.’ The Collective Rights Critique of the Individualistic Universalism of Human Rights
8. The Charge: ‘Human Rights Are for Men.’ The Feminist Critique of the Particularism of Human Rights
9. The Normative Core of Human Rights
10. Conclusion: The Mediated Universalism of Human Rights