Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-pnlb5 Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-10-30T15:44:10.062Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Meditating on rights and responsibility: remarks on ‘the limits and burdens of rights’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2020

Kathryn Sikkink
Kathryn Sikkink*
Affiliation:
Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: Kathryn_Sikkink@hks.harvard.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kratochwil's critique of rights as a dominant moral theory that cannot avoid ‘hegemonic’ politics appears to be too crude. This article suggests that more theoretical and practical attention to the responsibilities necessary to implement rights could address some of Kratochwil's concerns. The language of political and ethical responsibilities is often missing from the practical action discourse of human rights. The article emphasizes the multitude of potential ‘agents of justice’ and how they can discharge forward-looking responsibilities in open and discretionary ways.

Keywords

Agents of justicehuman rightsresponsibilities

Information

Type
Symposium: In the Midst of Theory and Practice: Edited by Hannes Peltonen and Knut Traisbach
Information
International Theory , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , November 2021 , pp. 574 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arendt, Hannah. 1976. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Blitz, Mark. 2005. Duty Bound: Responsibility and American Public Life. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Boot, Eric R. 2017. Human Duties and the Limits of Human Rights Discourse. Cham: Springer International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felice, William F. 2016. The Ethics of Interdependence: Global Human Rights and Duties. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret, and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists beyond Border: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 2007. “Of False Promises and Good Bets: A Plea for a Pragmatic Approach to Theory Building (The Tartu Lecture).” Journal of International Relations and Development 10 (1): 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 2014. The Status of Law in World Society: Meditations on the Role and Rule of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montero, Julio. 2017. “Human Rights, Personal Responsibility, and Human Dignity: What Are Our Moral Duties to Promote the Universal Realization of Human Rights?” Human Rights Review 18 (1): 67–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Neill, Onora. 2016. Justice across Boundaries: Whose Obligations? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peltonen, Hannes, and Traisbach, Knut. 2021. “In the Midst of Theory and Practice: A Foreword.” International Theory 13 (3): 508–12.Google Scholar
Richardson, Henry. 1999. “Institutionally Divided Moral Responsibility.” Social Philosophy & Policy 16 (2): 218–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse, Mathias. 2012. On Global Justice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sikkink, Kathryn. 2011. The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Sikkink, Kathryn. 2020. The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibility. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tasioulas, John. 2015. On the Foundations of Human Rights. In Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, edited by Cruft, Rowan, Matthew Liao, S., and Renzo, Massimo, 45–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 2011. “Dignity, Rights, and Responsibilities.” Arizona State Law Journal 43 (4): 1107–36.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1978. Politics as Vocation. In Weber: Selections in Translation, edited by Runciman, Walter G., 212–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Iris M. 2011. Responsibility for Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar