End of Rights:

Until completing this week’s readings, I had vaguely considered but never actually questioned the recency of human rights.  As Moyn points out, the concept of rights stretches back centuries as we have been learning through the past few weeks’ readings.  However, it was not until the 1940s that the term human rights was introduced.  Further, human rights as we know them did not gain popularity really until the 1990s. 

In fact, since the momentum of human rights and human rights declarations has been rapid, I do see validity in Matua’s declaration that “the seduction of human rights discourse has been so great that it has delayed a critique of rights.”  It seems to be difficult to agree upon and define human rights globally.  Different cultural emphasis and philosophical bases stand in the way.  However, Matua draws attention to the fact that human rights declarations follow a democratic liberalism paradigm.  Moyn aslso states how human rights became associated with pro capitalism and anti socialism during the Cold War.  If human rights are actually based on Western democracy, then of course this is problematic to the international community. 

Human rights would then in fact not be inclusive to all nation states and cultures.  I think this is part of the reason Agamben and Deleuze argue against human rights.  Deleuze states there are no human rights but instead life rights.  This would mean that life rights are based on a more individual case by case not on a global one-size-fits-all.  Agamben seems to further complement this argument by suggesting that if human rights are defined only to citizens in globally recognized nation states, refugees without citizenship would be without rights.  Therefore, they suggest that a case-by-case sort of life right exists without the cumbersome associations and exclusions of human rights.