Human Rights and Constituent Power

Human Rights and Constituent Power: Without Model or Warranty reworks the ordinary conception of human rights, by replacing their possessive individualism with the radically different ontology of ‘being-together’ in constituent struggle.

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With the emergence of modern human rights in the Universal Declaration, what remained of a radical political potential of the discourse withdrew: statism and individualism became its authorised foundations and the possibilities of other human rights traditions were denied. The strife that once lay at the heart of human rights was forgotten in an increasing juridification. This book seeks to recover the radical political pole of human rights. It looks to the debates surrounding constituent power – the ‘power of the people’ – in order to understand different possibilities for the discourse. Using continental political philosophy and critical legal theory, Human Rights and Constituent Power presents a very different conception of human rights, more at home on the riotous streets than in courtrooms and parliaments.