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Sources of Firepower for Weaponized Rights
“Rights” are often portrayed as things that are universal, apolitical, inherent, or natural, and as ends in themselves. But what if “rights” are mere rhetoric, a mobilizing device that can be used in service of any political aim, however liberal or illiberal it may be?
Ruling by Rights: Rule Making and Embedded Normativity
Clifford Bob’s Rights as Weapons offers a gripping description of the manifold ways people use rights-claims to attain strategic goals. In addition to using rights-claims to expand freedom and prosperity, Bob demonstrates they can also be deployed as “camouflage” or “dynamite,” in the service of narrow interests or to play groups against one another.
A Conversation about the Politics of Rights within Rights as Weapons
Clifford Bob’s book Rights as Weapons: Instruments of Conflict, Tools of Power builds a powerful argument that rights can be weapons of political conflict. Instead of taking rights as inherently human, universal, absolute, and apolitical, Bob invites us to consider how activists leverage the rhetorical power of these oft-assumed attributes to mobilize constituencies and deploy and counter rights claims in the pursuit of political goals.
Sri Lanka 2.0: Independent Inquiry Shows UN “Systemic Failure” in Myanmar
A recent independent inquiry into the involvement of the UN in Myanmar from 2010 to 2018 assigns collective responsibility for the atrocities committed during the 2017 Rohingya crisis to both the UN civil service and UN member states.
Tackling Climate Change: Why Us Now?
Professor Henry Shue writes that we are the pivotal generation, and acting now is not only a matter of self-interest but also of our unique moral responsibility.
After Katowice: Three Civil Society Strategies for Ratcheting Up Climate Ambition
The recent climate conference in Katowice, Poland was a milestone for the Paris Agreement, and it points to the role NGOs can play in encouraging states to ratchet up climate ambition.
Japan’s Withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission: A Disaster that Could Have Been Avoided
Former IWC chair Cristian Maquieira writes that Japan’s decision was a long time coming, but it didn’t have to be this way.
Climate Change and the Power to Act: An Ethical Approach for Practical Progress
The editors of Ethics & International Affairs organized a roundtable on climate change leadership and justice for the 2018 ISA convention. Access the audio and transcript of the full discussion here.
