‘In the Name of Humanity’: Human Rights and/as Ideology

This presentation attempts to tackle some of the complex relations between ideology and human rights by referring to two interesting texts on ideology and to outline some of the discursive ways in which human rights can function as ideology. By way of doing that we aim to pose some important questions for further research concerning the ways in which human rights discourse can assume various ideological uses and functions.

Keywords: human rights, ideology, utopia, discursive strategies ‘In the Name of Humanity’: Human Rights and/as Ideology

W imię człowieczeństwa: prawa człowieka i/jako ideologia

Artykuł stanowi próbę zmierzenia się ze złożonymi relacjami pomiędzy ideologią a prawami człowieka poprzez odniesienie się do dwóch interesujących tekstów na temat ideologii oraz scharakteryzowania pewnych dyskursywnych metod, według których prawa człowieka mogą funkcjonować jako ideologia. W ten sposób autor chce postawić kilka ważnych pytań co do dalszych badań dotyczących sposobów, w jakie dyskurs praw człowieka może mieć różne ideologiczne zastosowania i funkcje.

Barrett, M., The Politics of Truth, Polity Press, 1991.

Burr, V., An Introduction to Social Constructionism, London: Routledge, 1995. Douzinas, C., Seven theses on Human Rights (5) Depoliticization https://criticallegal-thinking.com/2013/05/31/seven-theses-on-human-rights-5-depoliticization/2013.

Douzinas, C., Human rights and the paradoxes of Liberalism https://goldsmithspress.pubpub.org/pub/pmsd0qe3/release/1.

Douzinas, C. & Gearty, C. (eds.), The Meanings of Rights, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Douzinas, C., Human Rights and Empire, Routledge, 2007.

Douzinas, C., The End of Human Rights. Critical thought at the turn of the century. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000.

Eagleton, T., Ideology, Routledge, 1994.

Howarth, D., Discourse, Open University Press, 2009.

Jorgensen, M. & Phillips L. Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method, Sage Publications, 2002.

Kymlicka, W., Contemporary political philosophy. An Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002.

Laclau, E., New Refiections on the Revolution of our Time, Verso, 1990.

Laclau, E. & Mouffe, C. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso, 2001.

Lipowatz, T. & Demertzis, N., Dokimio gia tin ideologia (Discourse on Ideology), Odysseas, Athens, 1998.

Mannheim, K., Ideology and Utopia, Routledge, 1991. Rehmann, J., Theories of Ideology, Britt, 2013.

Internet sources

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263226386_Human_Rights_in_Crisis_A_Critical_Polemic_Against_Polemical_Critics

https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/31/seven-theses-on-human-rights-5-depoliticization/

https://criticallegalthinking.com/2015/06/01/critical-bibliographies-human-rights/

https://goldsmithspress.pubpub.org/pub/pmsd0qe3/release/1