Human Rights as Ideology

 Human history for the majority of our time has been fraught with violence, bloodshed, and the artificial imposition of one power over another. The conquerors of old, such as Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar, did so in the name of honor or glory. More modern conquerors such as the British or French empires did so in the name of trade, economy, and resources. In the modern age, many would argue that the West partakes in the same activity of conquest as they did in the past, now in the name of human rights. At the end of the day, this is an issue of ideology. Specifically, human rights are now the predominant ideology we use to justify actions that we otherwise would not partake in. In this case, I am specifically referring to external militant actions. 

While I agree, and I think Beitz would also agree in part with this observation, the issue here is whether or not human rights as an ideology is still preferable to whatever other alternative we can conjure up. History would tell us that no matter the ideology, the core theme behind militant action (whether that be colonialism, interventions, etc.) seems to be conquest for the sake of material gain. What this means is that rather than seeing "civilizing the Americas" as a reason behind colonialism, the Spanish saw the land first, and then decided to justify it by pacifying the land with Catholicism. What this implies is that conquest and injustice would happen regardless of what the ideology behind it is. For example, Japan expanded its colonial empire ostensibly as a form of "anti-imperialism" and to uplift the people of Asia. This was simply what Japan chose at the time because imperialism has been already stigmatized at the time due to human rights concerns. Absent those concerns, Japan would have likely selected some other form of ideological justification to enforce their colonial expansion. 

Why then, is human rights the most preferred ideology, even if it still may enable conquest and other forms of injustice? This is because as Beitz writes, the ideology of human rights is one of the few truly global practices that we have. While it may be shaped by colonialist narratives, and have all kinds of issues, the point is nonetheless that through circumstance, it is one of the only examples of ideology that we as a global society truly agree on. As such, when Russia uses human rights as a casus belli towards its invasion of Ukraine, because we as a society share the same ideology, it becomes much easier for us all to call out any transgression of what the ideology might, or imply to protect. In other words, in an alternate world where human rights as a practice is not global, Russia can invade Ukraine through imperialist ideology, while the rest of the world is powerless to stop it. The power of human rights as an ideology is that we can point to an action by an international party, and to some extent, call it out as objectively wrong. This is inherently predicated on the fact that in principle, our shared ideology can only be stretched to a certain extent before it becomes egregiously inconsistent (i.e Russian "denazification" of Ukraine is so far from the truth that we all recognize it as wrong, we only recognize it because we all have a rough idea of what human rights look like). 

I will be the first to say that human rights as an ideology has significant flaws. The lax enforcement mechanisms, the differing interpretations, and the ability for nations to try to co-opt it for individual gain are all significant issues that ought to be addressed. Nonetheless, our current understanding and practice of human rights is the least-worst system we could operate within. It represents the bare minimum that we as a society could agree upon, and is the closest thing to an objective standard for human action we have. 

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