Human rights, humanitarian law and state power

Abstract

This article deals with the relationship between humanitarian law and human rights. Our argument is that the emergence of human rights as a particular language of political transformation in the 1970s had a crucial impact on traditional readings of international humanitarian law. On one hand, the breakthrough of rights language created favorable conditions for humanitarian norms to reclaim its relevance in law and politics nowadays. On the other, it obliged humanitarian norms to share space in the legal imaginary with the novel language of social emancipation of rights. We examine how the construction of legal arguments within a rights vocabulary may blur legal definitions and create space for abuses. Finally, we analyse specific situations where human rights law facilitates the state to use its powers in spite of humanitarian norms.