Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry
| Autor | Marco Odello |
| Páginas | 181-184 |
Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, Michael Ignatieff. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON AND OXFORD, 2001, ISBN 0-691-08893-4 (ALK. PAPER), PP. 187
Page 181
Human rights literature1 is providing new interesting developments. Michael Ignatieff is one of the most important writers in the ares of human rights from a non-strict legal perspective. He analyses various issues related to human rights mainly from the historical and political perspective. He is presently the Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. He has published in the area of human rights and humanitarian law (The Warrior’s Honour and The Need of Strangers and Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond), and he has written novels such as Scar Tissue and The Russian Album, A Family Memoir.
The present book is based on the Tanner Lectures delivered by the author at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values in the year 2000. The book takes the following structure: it includes an introduction by Amy Gutmannn then, the main text of the author, divided in two chapters, is followed by comments of four scholars, K. Anthony Appiah, David A. Hollingher, Thomas W. Laqueur, and Diane F. Orentlicher, with a final response by the author.
The two main sections of the author’s work deal with the concept of human rights ‘as politics’ and ‘as idolatry’. In both the author deals with many relevant and contemporary issues linked to the concept, application and problems of human rights.
The first chapter — Human Rights as Politics — deals with several important issues of today’s human rights problems. One of the main assertions of Ignatieff is that ‘human rights has gone global by going local’ (p.7). All around the world human rights have become the way to reddress wrongs and to protect the victims of ‘unjust states and oppressive social practices’ (p.7). For this reason human rights are not a western ideology expanding like economic and financial globalization. The expansion of human rights culture is a specific example of ‘moral progress’ (p.7).
Page 182
But human rights suppose a ‘political’ activism, as those people who defend them must take side, to be truly effective. In this case the author does not consider the problems related to the political risks of open denunciation. Here we face the following doubt: should we negotiate and maintain a form of dialogue even with the worst criminal regime or should we stop any contact and condemn it? On this issue the...
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu prueba