Monique Deveaux, Normative liberal theory…

Normative liberal theory and the

bifurcation of human rights

Monique Deveaux*

Department of Political Science, Schapiro Hall, Williams College, MA, USA

Abstract

This article argues that liberal arguments for human rights minimalism, such as those of John

Rawls and Michael Ignatieff , contain fundamental inconsistencies in their treatment of core rights

to life and liber ty. Insofar as their versions of minimalism foreground rights to physical security and

basic freedom of movement, they cannot coherently exclude cer tain social and economic

protections and liber ties that directly suppor t or are even partly constitutive of these rights. Nor

do they have good grounds for putting the social and private realms wholly beyond the pur view of

international law. ‘New’ human rights that represent an expansion of civil rights in particular

beyond the classic conception to encompass, for example, the right to freedom from sexual and

gender-based violence, illustrate especially well the extent to which civil, social, and economic

rights violations, and their remedies, are deeply interwoven. These emergent rights also directly

challenge the dichotomy between the public/political and private/social realms, and the corollar y

assumption that human rights violations occur mainly or exclusively in the former sphere. While

the concerns that motivate arguments for human rights minimalism*considerations of pluralism

and prudence*are legitimate, proponents would do best to reconsider the multiple roles that

human rights in fact play, in spite of their essentially contested status.

Keywords: human r ights; sexual and gender-based violence; social and economic r ights;

civil liberties; John Rawls; Michael Ignatieff; domestic violence; human trafﬁcking; public

and private

Ethics & Global Politics

Vol. 2, No. 3, 2009, pp. 171