Of history, human rights and human rights

Abstract

In his recent work 'The Endtimes of Human Rights' Stephen Hopgood makes an important distinction between human rights and Human Rights. The distinction is between that of an almost natural human revulsion against injustice and a desire to impose a particular, and very modern Western regime of Rights which may, or may not, take into account the particular circumstances under which people are being persecuted and suffering: A disconnect is growing up between global humanism with its law, courts, fund-raising, and campaigns on the one hand, and local lived realities on the other. It is a disconnect between Human Rights and human rights...