Costas Douzinas, Human Rights and Empire. The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

Today, to use Richard Rorty's expression, ''human rights are a fact of the world''. 1 Following the end of the Cold war, human rights gained prominence in international law, in (international) legal and political theory as well as in popular parlance. Moreover, human rights have increasingly entered the corridors of power. Wars have been fought in their name, military alliances have redefined their core business in terms of human rights, while large scale reconstructions of domestic societies have been undertaken for the sake of humanity. After 2001, the link between human rights and (international) security became even closer. The Bush government, for example, has casually identified the lack of human rights protection by 'failed' or 'rogue' States as an issue of homeland security, thus merging the agenda of counter-terrorism with the agenda of humanitarism. Costas Douzinas' latest book, 'Human Rights and Empire', studies the relation between human rights and the wars that are carried out in their name. Building on insights already developed in, inter alia, 'The End of Human Rights', 2 Douzinas sets out to save the critical potential of human rights in the face of their incorporation in imperialistic projects. In this context, one of the focal points of 'Human Rights and Empire' is the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Throughout history, Douzinas argues, different versions of cosmopolitanism have started as universalistic critiques of local injustices, only to end up as ideologies of imperial rule. Thus, critical theories of cosmopolitanism developed by the Stoics proved useful for the Macedonian and Roman imperial designs, while modernist theories of cosmopolitanism and civilization were taken up in attempts to defend,