New Directions in Human Rights Theory

Room – Roscoe 3.4

Jesse Tomalty (University of Bergen); Kerri Woods (University of Leeds) 

Human rights occupy a prominent place in international and national politics. We may be witnessing the destabilization of previously dominant global norms, including, importantly, human rights as a marker of legitimacy and as principles to be upheld universally. Yet, the purported inviolability and inherent dignity of the human person remains a powerful and inspiring idea taken up by activists and political leaders across the world. 

Over the past few decades, human rights theory has burgeoned into an important area of study, encompassing a variety of questions about the nature, justification, content, scope, and implications of human rights.

While progress has been made in articulating different positions and debates within human rights theory, many fundamental questions about human rights remain unanswered, notably concerning their normative source and authority, and the connection between human rights theory and practice.

Furthermore, despite its global relevance, human rights theory has so far been dominated by Western scholars working mainly in the liberal, analytic tradition. This represents an important limitation on our understanding of human rights, which may be challenged as well as renewed by engagement with and between diverse and global philosophical perspectives.

This panel will bring together researchers from different theoretical traditions and positions with the dual aim of taking stock of human rights theory to date and reflecting on its future. To this end, we welcome contributions that advance ongoing debates within human rights theory, as well as those that identify and take up questions and perspectives that have been overlooked or underexplored.