The Meanings of Rights

Costas Douzinas is Professor of Law and Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. He is a leading scholar in the field of the critical study of human rights. Conor Gearty is Professor of Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Director of the LSE's Institute of Public Affairs. He is a specialist in UK human rights law, as well as in terrorism law and civil liberties.

• Introduction Conor Gearty and Costas Douzinas; Part I. Finding Foundations: 1. On human rights: two simple remarks Jean-Luc Nancy (translated by Gilbert Leung); 2. Human rights: the necessary quest for foundations Conor Gearty; 3. Against human rights: liberty in the western tradition John Milbank; 4. Religious faith and human rights Rowan Williams; Part II. Law, Rights and Revolution: 5. Philosophy and the right to resistance Costas Douzinas; 6. On a radical politics for human rights Illan Rua Wall; 7. Fanon today Drucilla Cornell; 8. Race and the value of the human Paul Gilroy; Part III. Rights, Justice, Politics: 9. From 'human rights' to 'life rights' Walter D. Mignolo; 10. Democracy, human rights and cosmopolitanism: an agonistic approach Chantal Mouffe; 11. Plural cosmopolitanisms and the origins of human rights Samuel Moyn; Part IV. Rights and Power: 12. Second-generation rights as biopolitical rights Pheng Cheah; 13. History, normativity, and rights Paul Patton; 14. 'All of us without exception': Sartre, Rancière, and the cause of the Other Bruce Robbins; 15. However incompletely, human Joseph R. Slaughter; 16. Welcome to the 'spiritual kingdom of animals' Slavoj Žižek.

'It would be difficult to imagine a more qualified and diverse team of intelligent critics to assess the meaning of human rights in today's 'post-humanist' world. The result of their symposium, however, is a complete redistribution of the game, where the fact of right emerges impossible to discard, precisely because it has become intrinsically problematic.' Étienne Balibar, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris-Nanterre, and author of Equaliberty and Violence and Civility