Presenters Svenja Behrendt: University of Dusseldorf, Germany
Anthony Farley: University of Albany School of Law, United States
Kristian Skagen Ekeli: University of Stavanger, Norway
Konstantinos Papageorgiou: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Human rights promise an ethical and legal code of global reach, binding on all nations, cultures, and political systems. But that aspiration has faced criticism since its inception. Some observers reject the very notion of a comprehensive higher law standing above every legal system in the world. Others accept the movement’s goals, but doubt that human rights law provides the appropriate tools to achieve them. Still others find that the concept disadvantages women and other minorities, or criticize its individualism and consider human rights obstacles to social progress. Can we really solve global problems on the basis of individual human rights? Even if we accept the reality of human rights, have we not expanded the concept too far? Many writers reproach human rights ideology for contributing to the very problems it purports to solve. How can human rights law respond to such objections? Must it make thoroughgoing changes? If so, what are the alternatives?
This workshop brings together the participants in a collective volume that presents the major critiques of human rights, but also considers the counter-critiques. It aims to turn the criticisms against themselves, and use them creatively to reconceptualise human rights. Should the scope of human rights be narrowed to strengthen the protection of those that remain? Can criticisms of human rights be incorporated to make human rights better, or stronger? These critical discourses will help develop more effective responses to continuing social injustice.