This book explores how can a belief in and scepticism towards human
rights be reconciled.
The dilemma of a liberal human rights lawyer is this: one both believes
in and doubts human rights. No wonder, for human rights are ambivalent.
As positive legal enactments, they are the result of political
bargaining that speak the concrete and verifiable language of rules; yet
they also hold an intangible promise of universal good that reaches
beyond the text of enacted rules, evoking their cosmopolitan purpose.
This dual nature makes human rights strong and accounts for their
extraordinary appeal. But it also makes the practice of human rights a
fundamentally liberal exercise in irresolution.
This book offers a critical, albeit sympathetic, exploration of the
conditions for practising and enforcing human rights in a world steeped
in ambivalence. Through an historical narrative it first unravels the
liberal tension that inheres in rights, and then moves on to examine the
case law of the European Court of Human Rights to illustrate how the
tension compels a choice in the exercise of rights. In the final part,
the tension and the choice in rights is analysed within the realm of
humanitarian violence. This is the realm of the tension - and the
choice - between the hope and the fear of the liberal world.