"We are living through the endtimes of the civilizing mission.
The ineffectual International Criminal Court and its disastrous
first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, along with the failure in
Syria of the Responsibility to Protect are the latest pieces of
evidence not of transient misfortunes but of fatal structural
defects in international humanism. Whether it is the increase in
deadly attacks on aid workers, the torture and 'disappearing' of
al-Qaeda suspects by American officials, the flouting of
international law by states such as Sri Lanka and Sudan, or the
shambles of the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh, the prospect of
one world under secular human rights law is receding. What seemed
like a dawn is in fact a sunset. The foundations of universal
liberal norms and global governance are crumbling." from The
Endtimes of Human Rights
In a book that is at once passionate and provocative, Stephen
Hopgood argues, against the conventional wisdom, that the idea of
universal human rights has become not only ill adapted to current
realities but also overambitious and unresponsive. A shift in the
global balance of power away from the United States further
undermines the foundations on which the global human rights regime
is based. American decline exposes the contradictions, hypocrisies
and weaknesses behind the attempt to enforce this regime around the
world and opens the way for resurgent religious and sovereign
actors to challenge human rights.
Historically, Hopgood writes, universal humanist norms inspired
a sense of secular religiosity among the new middle classes of a
rapidly modernizing Europe. Human rights were the product of a
particular worldview (Western European and Christian) and specific
historical moments (humanitarianism in the nineteenth century, the
aftermath of the Holocaust). They were an antidote to a troubling
contradiction the coexistence of a belief in progress with
horrifying violence and growing inequality. The obsolescence of
that founding purpose in the modern globalized world has, Hopgood
asserts, transformed the institutions created to perform it, such
as the International Committee of the Red Cross and recently the
International Criminal Court, into self-perpetuating structures of
intermittent power and authority that mask their lack of democratic
legitimacy and systematic ineffectiveness. At their best, they
provide relief in extraordinary situations of great distress;
otherwise they are serving up a mixture of false hope and
unaccountability sustained by human rights as a global brand.
The Endtimes of Human Rights is sure to be controversial.
Hopgood makes a plea for a new understanding of where hope lies for
human rights, a plea that mourns the promise but rejects the
reality of universalism in favor of a less predictable encounter
with the diverse realities of today s multipolar world."
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
