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8 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 125 (1998)
Voices of Suffering and the Future of Human Rights

handle is hein.journals/tlcp8 and id is 131 raw text is: Voices of Suffering and the Future of Human Rights* Upendra Baxi** I. Introduction ................................................................................................ 125 II. Two Notions of Human Rights: Modern and Contemporary. ............ 132 III. Critiques of Contemporary Human Rights ............................................ 138 IV. Human Rights Movements and Human Rights Markets ........................ 155 V. The Emergence of an Alternate Paradigm of Human Rights ................. 163 VI. Toward A Conclusion? ............................................................................... 169 I. INTRODUCTION A. An Age of Human Rights? Much of the Twentieth Century, especially its later half, will be recalled as an Age of Human Rights. No preceding century of human history1 has been privileged to witness a profusion of human rights enunciations on a global scale. Never before have the languages of human rights sought to supplant all other ethical languages. No preceding century has witnessed the proliferation of human rights norms and standards as a core aspect of what may be called the politics of intergovernmental desire. Never before has this been a discourse so varied and diverse that it becomes necessary to publish and update regularly, through the unique discursive instrumentality of the United Nations system, in ever exploding volumes of fine print, the various texts of instruments relating to human rights.2 The Secretary-General of the United Nations was perhaps right to observe (in his inaugural remarks at the * This paper anticipates some themes and formulations from my work THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS (forthcoming 1999). ** Professor of Law, University of Warwick; former Vice Chancellor and Dean, Faculty of Law, Delhi University; former Director, Indian Law Institute; past President, The Indian Society of International Law; special interests--comparative sociology of human rights and law, science, and technology. 1. I use the term human as an act of communicational courtesy. Human is marked by the presence of man; so is person. My preferred non-sexist version is, therefore, a combination of the first letters of both words: huper. I await the day when the word huper will replace the word human. 2. See THE UNITED NATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS: A COMPILATION OF INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS (1997).

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