Human Rights and Social Justice

Neil Hibbert
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Neil Hibbert: Department of Political Studies, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Dr, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A5, Canada

Laws, 2017, vol. 6, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: This paper addresses the question of the normative domains of human rights and social justice. Today, the dominant view in political philosophy is that they occupy largely distinct spheres, with social justice being a set of stronger egalitarian norms and human rights functioning as baseline protections against common threats posed by states to the general interests of persons subjected to them. Reflecting on current human rights practice and discourse, this paper develops a reconstructed normative model of social justice and human rights as nested membership norms in political societies. By connecting membership to processes of political legitimacy, human rights are conceptualized as increasingly functioning as the language of contesting and reforming barriers of exclusion to that status. This leads to an understanding of the possible content of human rights that is dynamic and relational, bringing it closer in line with the egalitarianism of social justice.

Keywords: human rights; social justice; political legitimacy; membership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:6:y:2017:i:2:p:7-:d:101669

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