Human Rights as Battlefields

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

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2. Introduction: Becoming Human Rights Subjects Through New Practices

   • Gabriel Blouin-Genest, Marie-Christine Doran, Sylvie Paquerot

   Pages 1-12

3. The Changing Nature of Human Rights and Their Political Boundaries: New Definitions, Longstanding Debates

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

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   2. Human Rights as Battlefields: Power Relations, Translations and Transformations—A Theoretical Framework

      • Gabriel Blouin-Genest, Marie-Christine Doran, Sylvie Paquerot

      Pages 15-30

   3. The Gender of Human Rights: The French Debate Over “les droits de l’Homme”

      • Charles Bosvieux-Onyekwelu

      Pages 31-51

   4. The Right to Water: The Political Function of Human Rights as an Expression of the Contradictions in Globalization

      • Sylvie Paquerot

      Pages 53-75

   5. Politics of Neutrality, Human Rights and Armed Struggles: The Turkey Example

      • Ozan Kamiloglu

      Pages 77-98

4. Overcoming the Frontiers of Discrimination and Structural Violence: Intersectional Struggles of Human Rights from Below and Transformations of Political Space

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 99-99

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   2. Child Prisoners, Human Rights, and Human Rights Activism: Beyond ‘Emergency’ and ‘Exceptionality’—An Australian Case Study

      • Judith Bessant, Rob Watts

      Pages 101-127

   3. Who Is a Child? The Politics of Human Rights, the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC), and Child Marriage in Nigeria

      • Olabanji Akinola

      Pages 129-148

   4. Forcibly Sterilized: Peru’s Indigenous Women and the Battle for Rights

      • Ñusta Carranza Ko

      Pages 149-172

   5. Politicization of Rights-Based Development and Marginalization of Human Rights from Below: The Case of Maternal Health Rights in India

      • Surma Das

      Pages 173-196

5. Social Contestation and the Broadening of Human Rights’ Meanings

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 197-197

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   2. Indigenous Peoples in Chile: Contesting Violence, Building New Meanings for Rights and Democracy

      • Marie-Christine Doran

      Pages 199-223

   3. Improving HIV/AIDS Drugs Access: A Genealogy of the Human Right to Health from Below

      • Gabriel Blouin-Genest, Mikey Erb

      Pages 225-247

   4. Internet Access as Human Right: A Dystopian Critique from the Occupied Palestinian Territory

      • Fabio Cristiano

      Pages 249-268

   5. Conclusion: Changing Human Right Practices and the Battlefields of World Politics

      • Gabriel Blouin-Genest, Marie-Christine Doran, Sylvie Paquerot

      Pages 269-280

6. Back Matter

   Pages 281-288

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This book examines human rights as political battlefields, spaces that are undergoing constant changes in which political conflicts are expressed by a translation process within networks of interactions. This translation, in turn, contributes to modifying the scope and understanding of human rights. Ultimately, these battlefields express the legitimacy encounter of different versions of human rights in contemporary political practices. The volume thus challenges both the tendency to minimize the changing nature of human rights as well as the struggles emerging from the use of human rights discourses as a legitimization tool. By shifting the focus on what stakeholders do instead of solely on the origin, nature or foundations of human rights, the authors reveal that human rights are not static objects: they are constantly transformed and, as such, affect the horizon of universal rights. 

• Human rights
• Political conflict
• International law
• Global politics
• United Nations
• Legitimization

• Department of Political Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

  Gabriel Blouin-Genest

• School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

  Marie-Christine Doran, Sylvie Paquerot

Gabriel Blouin-Genest is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, USA.


Marie-Christine Doran is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada.


Sylvie Paquerot is Associate Professor of Political and Legal Studies at the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada.

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