Brown and the Fatalism of Human Rights
Wendy Brown directs her essay, “’The Most We Can Hope For…’: Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism” as a response to a series of lectures given by Michael Ignatieff. Along the way, Brown identifies ways in which human rights activism is more than the antipolitical movement attempting to defend the innocent against abusive states and actors it claims to be. Firstly, by challenging the assertion that human rights activism is antipolitical, Brown then identifies the unintended consequences of human rights activism and lastly claims it to be used as a tool to further imperialist international policy and of the global capitalist economy. Let us first look at the claim that human rights activism is antipolitical.
While human rights activism attempts to cast itself as morally antipolitical, Brown argues the mere fact that human rights exists within a political framework and their actions result in political consequences beyond their intended scope makes them political. Brown continues, identifying ways in which human rights activism can result in unintended ramifications (as the saying goes, the best of intentions…). Most glaringly, because human rights activism focuses on individual rights and justice, it has the tendency, purposeful or not, to supersede all other collective justice projects (p454-455). While some of the political consequences of human rights activism may not be intended, the use of human rights language to further global free trade and imperialist policy does seem to be purposeful.
Brown clearly identifies that Ignatieff’s focus on individual rights over collective rights creates an environment ripe for global free-trade capitalism, with the assumption that social and economic rights will follow. While the focus on individual rights may lead to an environment in which capitalism can thrive, Brown rightfully points out that history shows economic and social rights to not generally follow, at least not without organized activism (p. 457-458). Moving from global capitalism to imperialism, Brown identifies how the umbrella of human rights was used to invade Iraq and to justify the war on terror. Both not only resulted in gross human rights violations abroad, but also a limit on political and civil rights at home (p. 460).
While not an easy read for someone like myself with an optimistic bent, I cannot help but to agree with Brown. The examples she provides, the invasion of Iraq and the war on terrorism, illustrate how the pursuit of human rights can easily be distorted by imperialist and capitalist powers. Further, if we are to look at how the United Nations operates, focusing on human rights abuses by developing countries and ignoring the abuses (or not being allowed to investigate and publish the abuses) of the superpower and permanent security council member states, we are provided with yet another example. This isn’t to say that human rights activism should be dismissed outright. As Brown states in the closing of her essay, we need to find a way to address both collective and individual injustices, in addition to the imbalance of power, outside the current political framework of human rights activism.
