The Endtimes of Human Rights
Stephen Hopgood
Cornell University Press £18.50
(978-0-8014-5237-6)
Church Times Bookshop £16.65 (Use code
CT477 )
AS ITS title suggests, this is a book with a strong thesis. It
argues that the Human Rights Movement became a form of secular,
universal religion, first within the Red Cross in the 19th century,
and then through the League of Nations and the United Nations in
the 20th century. From the 1970s onwards, it has also been aligned
firmly to American power, effectively becoming part of American
foreign policy (but, ironically, not an instrument substantially to
shape its internal policy), whose final enforcement agency is the
International Criminal Court.
With, however, the failure of secularism and the resilience of
traditional religions outside Europe, the demise of American power
and the rise of power in China and the East, and the failure of the
International Criminal Court successfully to convict any political
leader outside Africa, the Human Rights Movement is now in terminal
decline. At most we can expect human rights to survive on the
basis, say, of co-operative trading relations, albeit within
contexts of divergent local political and religious
sovereignties.
Stephen Hopgood (Comment, 14 March) is a
Reader in International Relations at the School of Oriental and
African Studies in London. He has previously written about Amnesty
International, arguing that it has at some point lost its way by
aligning itself with those in power. He writes with great passion
and conviction, although it is not always easy to detect whether he
is analysing or prescribing the "endtimes" of human rights. Using
considerably more than 40 acronyms throughout (is this a product of
reading too many United Nations documents?), his text can also be
hard going.
Was I finally convinced by his strong thesis? Not completely,
but then seemingly neither were those writing commendations on the
cover of the book. They depict it variously as a "barnstormer",
"brilliant", and suited to "grab the reader's attention", but also
note that some readers "will object furiously" to its arguments and
find it simply "provocative" or "even shocking".
Having worked for a while with the branch of the UN concerned
with HIV, I am only half convinced. UN language and structures can
appear tiresome and even patronising, but in a context of the deep
distortions and even deceptions of some church leaders about HIV in
Sub-Saharan Africa, the work of the UN has been a vital corrective.
The author is strangely silent on this issue, mentioning only the
failure of the Human Rights Movement to eliminate female genital
mutilation in Africa and Asia.
In a global context of war and oppression, I would still rather
have than not have the UN and even the International Criminal
Court. Hopgood's sweeping claims fit well with those theologians
who decry both the Enlightenment and the benefits of liberal
democracy. Buthe and they are free to write as they do precisely
because they live in a society that, with all its faults, is shaped
by both.
Professor Robin Gill is the editor of
Theology.