Rights from Below: A Critical Look at Theory & Praxis of Human Rights(Session 3)

Rights From Below: A Critical Look at the Theory and Praxis of Human Rights and the Need for a New Emancipatory Framework

Description

This graduate study group critically examines human rights by looking at the framework’s history, theory and praxis. The course will examine how rights can be ineffectual without consequent capacity to enforce them and even oppressive, as they can be used by powerful actors to entrench and extend their power (for instance, should free speech protect reach or does the latter impede the former?). The course will also examine the inherent competition of rights which require mediation by a court system that is not equally available to all actors, and whether claims of cultural and religious rights should be confined within the universality of human rights (for instance, can we accept someone’s religious right to discriminate? Is this really a cognizable right if it in fact impedes other persons’ rights?). The course will also examine the historical and political contingency of identities and how we interpellate social constructions to be natural and immutable and consequent limits on our political possibilities. We will expose the false dichotomy between civil and political rights and economic rights and understand their interplay. We will examine whether the rights framework should extend to non-human actors (corporations, nature, animals etc.) and how and whether rights should have consequent responsibilities. We will also examine democratic deficits of a rights regime, the justice gap and envision an emancipatory framework that allows for participatory democracy without majoritarian rule. The course will examine these issues in the context of the pandemic, AI, rising inequality and nationalism and climate change.

Each session will be comprised of 45 minutes of presentation and 45 minutes of student-led discussion.

Session 3: Competition and Universality Within the Rights Rubric

• false dichotomy between civil and political rights
• the false dichotomy between "negative" and "positive" rights and how a negative construction can support powerful interests
• the inherent competitive nature of rights and the need for mediation
• resolving the tension between cultural relativism and the universality of human rights
• the problem of providing corporations rights without responsibilities
• expanding rights for natural elements, animals and silicon intelligence 

Readings

• Brown W. (1995), “Rights and Losses” in States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (pp 96-134)
• Stone, C. D. (1972), Should Trees Have Standing?—Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects, Southern California Law Review, 45, 450–501 ; 450-453; 458-463; 464-465
• Singer, P. (2009), Animal Liberation (originally published 1975) pp 10-17
• Gunkel, D.J, (2018), “Thinking Otherwise” in Robot Rights, (selection) pp 161-177
• Winkler, A. (2018), We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights (selections) pp 79-88; 113-117; 157-160; 358-376

Biography

Alexandra Arneri is a Partner at the bicoastal boutique firm Cittone Demers & Arneri LLP, where she practices complex commercial litigation and serves as outside general counsel to several media and tech companies. She has a robust and diverse pro bono practice, including having helped children who have been injured during illegal child labor, protected people on disability from losing affordable housing, stopped deceptive trade practices, helped people obtain healthcare and back wages and prevailed in asylum cases in the 9th Circuit. Alex spearheaded and advised GLAAD in its successful campaign to amend IMDb attribution to stop deadnaming and protect the privacy of below the line transgender artists. Alex has an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, an LLM concentrating in international law from NYU School of Law and a B.A./LLB from Sydney Universit