The Twilight of Human Rights Law

Legal scholar Posner (Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law, Arthur and Esther Kane Research Chair, Univ. of Chicago; coauthor, Economic Foundations of International Law) argues forcefully that the constellation of international human rights treaties that arose in the 1970s and became entrenched in the 1990s have not only failed to accomplish their stated goals but are a key factor in the global failure to eliminate human rights violations. Much as Stephen Hopgood's 2013 book The Endtimes of Human Rights claimed that global human rights organizations had become self-promoting bureaucracies, unsuited to the task of fostering and enforcing human rights, Posner indicts international human rights law as being fundamentally unenforceable and easily manipulated. In crisp, readable prose, Posner's work details the history of international human rights laws; describes the political, philosophical, and economic reasons countries might opt to participate in such treaties; and lays out his case that this current legal regime has not and cannot accomplish its aims.