'Barbarians' and 'Radicals' against the Legitimate Community? - Cultural Othering through Discourses on Legitimacy of Human Rights

Abstract

This article focuses on the mutations of rights from instruments of inclusion to instruments of exclusion. It focuses on multiple exclusionary interpretations of legitimacy of international human rights law that create and propagate otherness. The text analyses the understanding and role of ‘legitimate community of rights’ in contemporary crises of recognition and critically evaluates how this notion excludes those deemed too different to belong. The article does so primarily in light of managing religious difference and argues that European human rights regimes have created two distinct categories of dissidents seen as subversive and a priori excluded from the protection of rights – the ‘barbarians’ and the ‘radicals’. This analysis begins with a discussion of the theoretical notions of rights and legal legitimacy and their application in contemporary human rights case-law. It subsequently theorises the consequences of legitimising a homogenously constructed ‘community’ as the ultimate authority and its impact on reversal of the emancipatory potential of rights. Show more