The Modern Possibilities of Human Rights: A Critique of the Negative Critique of Law and Rights

Abstract

This note analyzes the relations between human rights discourse and Critical Legal Theory, focusing on what can be called “the negative critique of law and rights”. Although the negative critique is important to any kind of critical approach (especially those which deal with something that seems beyond the possibilities of the critique), the note presents the multiple problems of the total rejection of human rights in contemporary societies.