Interrupting the Human Rights Expansion Narrative

Abstract

In the growing field of the sociology of human rights, the notion that human rights might best be understood as the expansion and/or supersession of citizenship rights has taken root, as has the more generalized taken for granted “backstories” to the effect that human rights are the product of a unique postwar consensus. In this article, I argue that these assumptions are more encumbrance than assistance when it comes time to sociologically grasping what human rights are, how they emerged, and, more importantly, what they might be able to achieve. In the first half of the article, I demonstrate that the tropes of expansion and supersession of citizenship rights are central to two seminal sociological analyses of human rights—those of Bryan S. Turner (1993, 2006) and Yasemin N. Soysal (1994, 2012) —and that they fail to provide a social-relational and historical account of the emergence of human rights. In the second part, I pull together new historical and sociolegal scholarship that is recalibrating our understanding of human rights. Drawing attention to the 1970s as the more persuasive social-relational origin of contemporary human rights, I argue, allows a more nuanced appraisal of human rights’ (in)efficacy.