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38 Nordic J. Hum. Rts. 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/norjhur38 and id is 1 raw text is: NORDIC JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS Routledge 2020, VOL. 38, NO. 1, 1-17 https://doi.org/10.1080/18918131.2020.1773066 Taylor & Francis Group Human Rights as a 'Substitute Utopia'? Questionable Assumptions in Samuel Moyn's Work Heiner Bielefeldt University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Samuel Moyn surprises, provokes and polarises. In his widely read Samuel Moyn; human rights; monographs on historical facets of human rights, he deconstructs criticism; human rights heroic narratives and challenges traditional assumptions on the concepts; cosmopolitan origins of human rights. conception; history of human Human rights need critical accompaniment. Without systematic rights scrutiny, human rights practice can slip into political arrogance and moralistic complacency. Moreover, there is the ever-lurking danger that human rights organisations become self-serving rather than working on the issues they are supposed to foster. The concept of human rights itself can be turned into a modern humanitarian quasi-religion, whose tenets might claim absolute superiority over all other forms of ethos. In short: there are many reasons why a thorough critique of human rights - 'their claims, their norms and their practices -' is useful and indeed imperative. 1. The Charge of Minimalism Samuel Moyn surprises, provokes and polarises. In his widely read monographs on historical facets of human rights, he deconstructs heroic narratives and challenges traditional assump- tions on the origins of human rights. By triggering intellectual controversies, he has inspired a younger generation of historians to put the genesis of human rights to a new and relentless scrutiny. Even colleagues, who do not generally share his views, have acknowledged his original findings and fresh impulses.' Yet Moyn does not satisfy himself with the role of a historian; he at the same time undertakes a fierce political criticism of human rights. This may be a good thing. Human rights need critical accompaniment. Without systematic scrutiny, human rights practice can slip into political arrogance and moralistic complacency. Moreover, there is the ever-lurking danger that human rights organisations become self-serving rather than working on the issues they are supposed to foster. The concept of human rights itself can be turned into a modern humanitarian quasi-religion, whose tenets might claim absolute super- iority over all other forms of ethos. In short: there are many reasons why a thorough critique of human rights - their claims, their norms and their practices - is useful and indeed imperative. CONTACT Heiner Bielefeldt heiner.bielefeldt@fau.de 'For example, Justin Zaremby, 'On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Human Rights Law: Reading Samuel Moyn's The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History' (2012) 15 Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal 155; Eric D Weitz, 'Samuel Moyn and the New History of Human Rights' (2013) 12 European Journal of Political Theory 84; Paolo G Carozza, 'Review of Moyn's Book Christian Human Rights' (2018) 80 The Review of Politics 151; Frederick Cooper,'Review of Moyn's Book Not Enough' (June 2019) American Historical Review 1016. © 2020 Norwegian Centre for Human Rights

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