Human Rights On Trial: A Genealogy Of The Critique Of Human Rights

269 Pages·2018·1.741 MB·English

by  Justine Lacroix, Jean-Yves Pranchère

Human Rights on Trial
The first systematic analysis of the arguments made against human
rights from the French Revolution to the present day. Through the
writings of Edmund Burke, Jeremy Bentham, Auguste Comte, Louis
de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, Karl Marx, Carl Schmitt and Hannah
Arendt,theauthorsexplorethedivergencesandconvergencesbetween
these‘classical’argumentsagainsthumanrightsandthecontemporary
critiques made both in Anglo-American and French political
philosophy.HumanRightsonTrialisuniqueinitsmarriageofthehistory
of ideas with normative theory, and its integration of British–North
Americanandcontinentaldebatesonhumanrights.Itoffersapowerful
rebuttalofthedominantbeliefinasharpdivisionbetweenhumanrights
today and the Rights of Man proclaimed at the end of the eighteenth
century.It also offers a strong framework fora democraticdefence of
humanrights.
Justine Lacroix is Professor of Politics at the Université libre de
Bruxelles,Belgium. She isAssociateEditor of theEuropean Journalof
PoliticalTheory.
Jean-YvesPranchère is Professorof Political Theory atthe Université
libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He is Associate Editor of the European
JournalofSocialSciences.
HumanRightsinHistory
Editedby
Stefan-LudwigHoffmann,UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley
SamuelMoyn,YaleUniversity,Connecticut
Thisseriesshowcasesnewscholarshipexploringthebackgroundsofhumanrights
today.Withanopen-endedchronologyandinternationalperspective,theseries
seeksworksattentivetothesurprisesandcontingenciesinthehistoricalorigins
and legacies of human rights ideals and interventions. Books in the series will
focusnotonlyontheintellectualantecedentsandfoundationsofhumanrights,
but also on the incorporation of the concept by movements, nation-states,
internationalgovernance,andtransnationallaw.
Afulllistoftitlesintheseriescanbefoundat:
www.cambridge.org/human-rights-history
Human Rights on Trial
A Genealogy of the Critique of Human Rights
Justine Lacroix
UniversitélibredeBruxelles
Jean-Yves Pranchère
UniversitélibredeBruxelles
TranslatedbyGabrielleMaas
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ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781108424394
DOI:10.1017/9781108334884
Originally published in 2016 by Editions du Seuill as Le Procès des droits de
l’homme:Généalogieduscepticismedémocratique,writtenintheFrenchlanguage
byJustineLacroixandJean-YvesPranchère(ISBN9782021181005)
©EditionsduSeuil2016
FirstpublishedinEnglishbyCambridgeUniversityPressin2018,translationby
GabrielleMaas.
©JustineLacroixandJean-YvesPranchère2018
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2018
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
ISBN978-1-108-42439-4Hardback
ISBN978-1-108-43815-5Paperback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
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accurateorappropriate.
Contents
Acknowledgements pagevi
Introduction:FromtheRightsofMantoHumanRights? 1
1 CritiquesofHumanRightsinContemporaryThought 25
2 HumanRightsagainstInheritance
AConservativeCritique:EdmundBurke 59
3 HumanRightsversusSocialUtility
AProgressivistCritique:JeremyBenthamandAuguste
Comte 91
4 HumanRightsagainsttheRightsofGod
ATheologico-PoliticalCritique:LouisdeBonaldand
JosephdeMaistre 127
5 TheRightsofManagainstHumanEmancipation
ARevolutionaryCritique:KarlMarx 157
6 HumanRightsagainstPolitics
ANationalistCritique:CarlSchmitt 187
7 The‘righttohaverights’
RevisitingHannahArendt 206
Conclusion:TowardsaPoliticalUnderstanding
ofHumanRights 229
Index 247
v
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Research
Council, which funded this book with a Starting Grant entitled
‘RESIST. Human Rights versus Democracy? Towards a Conceptual
Genealogy of Skepticism about Human Rights in Contemporary Political
Thought (2010–2016). The Centre de théorie politique (CTP) at the
Université libre de Bruxelles, our home institution, has provided us
with an exceptionally inspiring and collegial working environment. The
authors would like to thank all past and current CTP members, and in
particularChristopherHamelandCarloInvernizzi-Accettifortheircom-
mitmenttotheRESISTproject.
An earlier version of Chapter 5 was published as Justine Lacroix and
Jean-Yves Pranchère, ‘Karl Marx fut-il un opposant aux droits de
l’homme?’,Revuefrançaisedesciencepolitique,3/2012(vol.62),pp.433–
451. Chapter 7 draws on arguments first explored in Justine Lacroix,
‘The Right to Have Rights and French Political Philosophy.
Conceptualising a Cosmopolitan Citizenship with Arendt’,
Constellations. An International Journal of Democratic and Critical Theory,
22/1,2015,pp.79–90.Wewouldliketothanktheeditorsofbothjournals
forgrantingpermissiontodeveloptheseideasfurtherhere.
Many colleagues have generously shared their ideas and time with us:
Julie Allard, Sarah Al Matary, Carolina Armenteros, Isabelle Aubert,
Catherine Audard, Serge Audier, Etienne Balibar, Olivier Beaud,
Thomas Berns, Samuel Chambers, Bertrand Binoche, Antoon
Braeckman, Emmanuelle Bribosia, Frédéric Brahami, Bruno
Bernardi, Louis Carré, Manuel Cervera-Marzal, Anne-Sophie
Chambost, Véronique Champeil-Desplats, Francis Cheneval, Antoine
Chollet, Laurent Clauzade, Jean Cohen, Catherine Colliot-Thélène,
Juliette Corsy, Philippe Crignon, Ludivine Damay, Robert Damien,
Martin Deleixhe, Florence Delmotte, Isabelle Delpla, Helder De
Schutter, Alexandre Escudier, Jean-Marc Ferry, Rainer Forst, Stéphanie
Francq,MichaelFreeden,MarieGaille,AntoineGarapon,RafGeenens,
Raphaël Gely, Pierre Glaudes, Florent Guénard, Sophie Guérard de la
vi
Acknowledgements vii
Tour,AxelGosseries,AytenGündogdu,MichelHastings,BonnieHonig,
James Ingram, Engin Isin, Bruno Karsenti, Jean-François Kervégan, Jan
Kleinheisterkamp, Michael Kohlhauer, Cécile Laborde, Pieter Lagrou,
Arnaud Leclercq, Annabelle Lever, Alain Loute, Lois McNay, Kalypso
Nicolaïdis, Samuel Hayat, Murray Hunt, James Ingram, Léa Ipy, Pierre
Manent, John Milbank, Nobutaka Miura, Samuel Moyn, Janie Pélabay,
AnnePhilipps, ArndPollman,AlainPolicar, Jean-Claude Poizat,Olivier
Rémaud, Isabelle Rorive, Pierre Rosanvallon, Denis Salas, Andrew
Schaap,DiogoSardinha,RéjaneSénac, CélineSpector,TristanStorme,
Etienne Tassin, André Tosel, Bernadette Tulkens, Françoise Tulkens,
Yannick Vanderborght, Philippe Van Parijs, Hajime Yamamoto and
Patrick Weil, as well as our students at the Université libre deBruxelles,
UniversitéSaint-Louis–Bruxelles,SciencesPoParisandSciencesPoLille.
Ourthanksgotoall.

Introduction: From the Rights of Man to
Human Rights?
Fragmented socialrelations,thetwin demiseof authorityandtradition,
the breakdown of behavioural norms and constraints: all these are the
outcome,accordingtotheircritics,oftheusesandabusesofhumanrights
in contemporary democratic societies. We are, they say, seeing the
perverseeffectsofa‘religionofhumanrights’towhichEuropehasrashly
devoteditsheartandmind,andthesupposedburgeoningofrights,which
goeshandinhandwithanuncheckedriseofexpectations,iscatapulting
Western democracies into an age of never-ending demands. This
emerged clearly in France in Spring 2013 during the demonstrations
againstequalmarriage(‘mariagepourtous’)whoseopponentsdeplored
the excesses of a movement-driven left striving for an unbounded
extensionofrights–fromtherighttosame-sexmarriagetotheenfranch-
isementofnon-nationalsortherightofsame-sexcouplestoadopt.1
Thisviewisnowsowidespreadthatwemaywellask:arewewitnessing
thebacklashagainstavocabularyofhumanrightsaccusedofdispensing
with the limits essential to the existence of a body politic worthy of the
name,andthereby‘annihilatinglaw’?2Bothinthepressandinpolitical
discourse, rampant accusations of ‘human rights-ism’ – attacking the
fixation with human rights that allegedly blinds their proponents to
constraintsonpoliticalaction–suggestthatsuchisthecase.Whilethis
so-called human-rights-ism masquerades as a misunderstood ‘ethic of
conviction’, say its critics, it is in fact the contemporary face of
amorallyandpoliticallydisastrouslackofresponsibility.3Thecampaign
againstsame-sexmarriageinspring2013,withitsscornforthesupposed
narcissismofclaimstopurelyindividualrights,anditsremindersofthe
1NicolasTruong,‘Versun“printemps”anti-Mai68?’,LeMonde,Saturday25May2013,
p.20.Onthistopic,seethecontributionsofLudivineBantigny,FrançoisCusset,Jean-
PierreLeGoffandChantalDelsolinthesameedition.
2AlainFinkielkraut,Causeur,3,June2013,p.35.
3Forasummaryofsomeinstancesofthisexpressionusedbothontherightandleft,see
François L’Yvonnet, ‘Du droit-de-l’hommisme’, Human Rights and their Possible
Universality, Academy of Latinity, Rio de Janeiro, 2009, pp. 207–219, www.alati.com
.br/fra/publicacoes_2009_oslo.html.
1