Human rights, histories and politics – a reading of the post-war debates

This paper underlines the historical and political character of human rights. It argues for a reading that does not see the history of human rights as a single narrative, but takes into account the situationality and politico-historical contingency of human rights, and their connection to specific contexts. What are in focus are debates and interpretations of human rights, and the political role of human rights in varying contexts and political constellations. Human rights is understood as a political concept: not something ‘self-evident’ or with a single meaning, but as contested and subject to (re)definitions and (re)interpretations, as well as justifications and criticisms. The paper examines histories of human rights with particular focus on debates connected to asylum-seekers, refugees, undocumented migrants and stateless persons. These questions have risen to the top of political agendas in Europe in recent times. Historically, there are in postwar European politics several waves when the topics have gained first rank significance. The paper pays attention to debates of the human rights momentum of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, with reference to the creation of the Geneva Refugee Convention (1951) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1953). The paper builds around the hypothesis that so called ‘non-citizens’ have acute implications for the study and theorising of human rights, and further, that, from a methodological perspective, an analysis of quasi-parliamentary debates and negotiations provides insights into the understanding of conceptual politics, contingencies and histories connected to human rights. The paper analyses human rights, firstly, as subject of controversies and contestations, secondly, it explores conceptual disputes of human rights and (non-)citizenship, and thirdly, it investigates histories of the concept of human rights by paying attention to rights argumentation, rhetoric and political deliberation.