Refugees and the Myth of Human Rights

Emma Larking is an Australian Research Council Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Justice, Australian National University and Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, Australia.

• Introduction Refugees and the Myth of Human Rights: Life Outside the Pale of the Law; Part I Part I; Chapter 1 Scum of the Earth I; Chapter 2 Rights and the Nation-state; Chapter 3 of of Origins. In the German version of the book the title is ‘Die Aporien der Menschenrechte’, or ‘The Aporias of the Rights of Man’ (, 756 fn. 3).; Part II Part II; Chapter 4 Natural Law and the False Promise of a Universal Community of Equals; Chapter 5 Liberalism’s False Promise I: Locke; Chapter 6 Liberalism’s False Promise II: Kant; Part III Part III; Chapter 7 Scum of the Earth II: Contemporary Refugees; Chapter 8 The International Human Rights Regime and the Sovereignty of States; Chapter 9 The Right to Have Rights and a New Law on Earth;

’This is a penetrating analysis of the springs of human rights and human obligations. It is rigorously argued, and shows how refugees are treated as if they do not truly belong to the category of human beings whose human rights are relevant: that they are beyond the pale of the law. It shows the means by which refugees are unequal and unworthy of full recognition under (the) law.’ Julian Burnside, AO QC, Australia ’A significant contribution to the urgent debate about the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers by liberal states. A unique combination of practice and theory, this book embeds that treatment within a history of abuse and persecution and in a tradition of thought about the state, the nation, and human rights that is implicated in that abuse and persecution.’ Phillip Cole, University of the West of England, UK