Imperialism

The Western discourse on human rights routinely presents itself as universal, drawing upon the rhetoric of timeless moral principles that transcend culture and history. Yet, as critical legal theorists have long argued, universality is less an a priori truth than an outcome of power relations. As Martti Koskenniemi observes in From Apology to Utopia, international law oscillates between the language of universal principle and the reality of political power. What is presented as “universal” is, in fact, the particularity of dominant actors, translated into normativity through institutions and precedent. Recent debates surrounding Israel’s military campaign in Gaza illustrate this manufacturing process with disturbing clarity. Human rights NGOs, relying on established international humanitarian law, have characterized the scale of civilian suffering as war crimes. Yet Western leaders have not contested the facts so much as redefined the normative framework. A U.S. general openly acknowledged that America itself deliberately targeted civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, implying that such practices cannot be deemed illegitimate. Senator Lindsey Graham, more provocatively, invoked the precedent of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, suggesting Israel should be granted the same normative leeway that allowed the United States to achieve “victory.” These responses exemplify what Michel Foucault described as the intimate relationship between power and knowledge. The discourse of human rights does not exist in some neutral space of moral universality; it is produced, circulated, and authorized by those with the ability to enforce its application. Violations, rather than delegitimizing norms, are reinscribed as precedents. Thus, the acts of dominant states […]