This is the planned structure of the final project. The tracks may not be published in the order below, but you can see how each will fit into the four sections.
Politics
In these tracks, I’ll be thinking about the often neglected political aspect to human rights. I’ll be arguing that the best way to see human rights is political, and while this may involve us in disputes and arguments, these are a necessary part of making ethical progress.
- T1 – Coming Out – Human Rights are progressive politics for a post political age
- T2 – Taking To The Streets – Human rights can be revolutionary but must always be emancipatory
- T8 – Down With Constantine! – Property is (nearly) theft
- T10 – Up With The Unions! – Human rights thrive when the workers are united
- T5 – Hatred Can Be Progress – If human rights are not despised by the powerful they are not human rights
Layers
Here I am considering the historical aspects to the subject, how it has changed over time and indeed how the meaning we give to human rights is variable in lots of interesting and often under regarded ways.
- T18 – People Not Peoples – The focus of human rights is inevitably the person, not the people to whom they belong
- T9 – Resisting The Law’s Empire – Human rights need (not to be dictated to by) law
- T19 – Leaping Out Of The Box – Why human rights matter
- T7 – The Right Rights’ Model – Save the Human Rights Act
- T11 – Don’t Be Too Hard On Hypocrisy – Double standards are valuable as long as they don’t last too long
Truths
In this set of tracks I tackle what might be the most important question of all: do human rights really exist? Does it matter if they don’t? In other words, if human rights need foundations, can we provide them?
- T3 – Making Truth – Human rights are universal only if we make them so
- T4 – Doing What Comes Naturally? – Human rights are real not only because of what we are but because our imagination insists on them
- T17 – Liberty – A Dangerous Ally Of Human Rights – Human rights are about achieving freedom for all not protecting it for the few
- T13 – Faith Of Our Fathers – Human rights are the child and must be the critical friend of faith
Futures
In this final set of tracks, I reflect on how the idea of human rights is likely to develop and dangers and opportunities which lie ahead.
- T6 – Colliding Futures – A true human rights future is not inevitable – even though some such future is a certainty
- T20 – Enforcement Is Nine-Tenths Of The Law – A world court of human rights is vital but only if it seems pointless
- T14 – Triumph Through Adversity – In taming counter-terrorism law, human rights can forge a soul
- T15 – Beware Speciesism! – Human rights are a subset of animal rights
- T16 – Do Trees Have Rights? – What can human rights activists do about the environmental catastrophe?
- T12 – Supping With Mammon – Business must need but must never embrace human rights