Making Concepts Political Again: Human Rights and the Republican Public Sphere

Abstract

The notion of human rights is firmly rooted in the liberal tradition of political thought. Hence, it is interconnected with liberal understanding of freedom as non-interference. But how does the concept of human rights change when it leaves its liberal home? This panel aims to rethink human rights using the tradition in which rights are supposed to have the secondary status: republicanism. In particular, we will ask whether republicanism offer any resources for addressing the concern with the often depoliticizing nature of contemporary human rights talk and its connection with the judicialization of politics and activist litigation? But, conversely, we could also ask whether the republican tradition itself changed facing the age of rights. Has not its theory of strong public sphere weakened? Are there still some issues remaining that are properly political, not only legal, economic, or moral?