Political Legitimacy, Rights, and Human Rights

Abstract

While the philosophical human rights discourse traditionally has been of concern mainly for moral philosophers, we have in the last decades observed a revitalized interest in human rights among political philosophers and political theorists. In the contemporary debate, one might even claim that the philosophical human rights discourse has taken a ‘political turn’, which has to some degree resulted in a shift of focus from questions of the moral justification of human rights to an increased awareness of and interest in the need to achieve human rights globally. This turn has also implied a shift of attention from a humanist or ‘naturalist’ perspective, conceptualizing human rights in terms of pre-political and pre-institutional claims that individuals have in virtue of their humanity, to a political perspective, conceptualizing them as claims that individuals have against certain institutions. Against the backdrop of the great difficulties encountered in attempts from democratic theorists to come up with appropriate conceptions of political legitimacy for a transnational and global context, this political and institutional shift in the human rights debate raises interesting questions about the extent to which human rights standards might complement, substitute for, or otherwise interact with democratic principles for global institutions. With these questions in the background, this panel seeks to explore the relationship between human rights and political legitimacy in a global context. In particular, it welcomes papers that theorize and problematize the ways in which human rights can and ought to contribute to the political legitimacy of international institutions.

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