The Proliferation of Human Rights: Between Devotion and Calculation

in Jan Wouters, Koen Lemmens, Thomas Van Poecke and Marie Bourguignon (eds), Can We Still Afford Human Rights? Critical Reflections on Universality, Proliferation and Costs (forthcoming Edward Elgar 2020)

25 Pages Posted: 20 Jul 2020

Date Written: December 1, 2019

Abstract

This chapter explores how enlightened pragmatism demands that common sense and realistic capacities temper an ‘everything goes’ devotee approach to human rights by reshaping the narrative that proliferation is a negative concept. It speaks to the ways in which this balancing act has played out in terms of proliferation in the human rights system and perhaps how it should play out in the future. First explored is the legal and political machinery designed to protect human rights. Next, the chapter focuses on the positive and negative aspects of entrenching human rights language. Finally, the work considers critiques of the expansive interpretation or application of human rights. From increased monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and global use of human rights language to more expansive interpretations and applications of human rights law, the reality is that human rights law must evolve and respond to its environment if it is to remain relevant.

Keywords: Proliferation, Human Rights Treaties, Treaty Bodies, Pragmatism, Living Instruments, UDHR

Suggested Citation

McCall-Smith, Kasey L., The Proliferation of Human Rights: Between Devotion and Calculation (December 1, 2019). in Jan Wouters, Koen Lemmens, Thomas Van Poecke and Marie Bourguignon (eds), Can We Still Afford Human Rights? Critical Reflections on Universality, Proliferation and Costs (forthcoming Edward Elgar 2020), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3636503 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3636503

Kasey L. McCall-Smith (Contact Author)

University of Edinburgh School of Law ( email )

Old College
South Bridge
Edinburgh, EH8 9YL
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/people/kaseymccallsmith

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