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Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World

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... The question of whether individual rights are appropriate to address inequality and injustice is both justified and reasonable, as various rights-based discourses on social justice have gained ground in Nordic countries (cf. Vik et al. 2018;Kotkas and Veitch 2017;Svensson 2020a), as well as at the global level (Cornwall and Nyamu-Nusembi 2004;Uvin 2010;Banakar 2010a and2010b, and, from another perspective Moyn 2018). Due to the increasing dominance of rights-based discourse among EU membership, the Nordic countries have witnessed a shift in focus from political programmes for general welfare to an assertion of individual legal rights (Rothstein and Vahlne Westerhäll 2005). ...
... The rights-based approach 3 argues that social justice and rights are based on legal obligations (Cornwall and Nyamu-Nusembi 2004;Uvin 2010;Banakar 2010aBanakar , 2010bMoyn 2018;Kotkas and Veitch 2017;Svensson 2020a). Rights are transferred to the individual and perceived as an instrument that promotes freedom of choice and self-realisation. ...
... Attention shifts from systemic, larger distributional questions, different conceptualizations of the state and society to the legal rights-based discourse in support for neo-liberal marketisation and privatisation of the public sector. In a similar way, Samuel Moyn (2018) has noticed the new setting of "human rights in the neoliberal maelstrom" on a global scale alongside the demise of socialism. 7 6 This theme is further developed in Gustafsson (2018: 59-64). ...
Article
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Do extended legal rights for individuals optimize resistance to inequalities and promote social justice? Rights-based approaches have gained ground globally, also in the Nordic countries noting a shift from political programmes on general welfare to individual legal rights and anti-discrimination provisions. The shift has taken place in a time when ambitions to create equal opportunities in society debilitates. The trend, captured with the concept ‘rightification’, relates to a general Neo-liberal transformation. In a Nordic context, this transformation brings with it ambiguous out-comes: it leads to an individualisation of rights, a fragmentation of rights and to a disciplinary function of rights. Social needs are ‘framed’ as rights, individual rights replace political programmes and solutions. We argue that the traditional Nordic model, a perspective that understands individuals in social context and that context as inherently constituted by relations of power, (still) offers additional value to the rights-based approach.
... Struggles by and for undocumented migrant children take place in an 'age of human rights' (Moyn 2018). In these struggles, a state's obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill children's rights are one of few resources available for challenging the power of sovereign states to govern children's mobility and access to welfare. ...
... Ideally, the practice of child-right-ing should resist low ambitions of only seeking what is sufficient but rather mobilize rights in a broader struggle for increased equality (Moyn 2018). In recent years, continuations of the struggles for the rights of DREAMers have become more inclusive through fights for 'the most affected', which focuses on nonprivileged positionalities rather than deserving migrants. ...
... In this article, I have argued that child-right-ing holds potential in responding to the limiting positioning of undocumented migrant children as innocent and the colonial legacy and paradoxical character of children's rights. Humanity needs to save itself from its low ambitions, which have been embedded into the human rights paradigm (Moyn 2018). Child-right-ing is ambitious, as it aims to expand the reach of children's rights, which is one of few resources available in migrant struggles. ...
... The premise that one must depend on the judgment or whim of unqualified strangers for welfare contradicts the very raison d'être of the welfare state: public welfare policies emerged precisely to address the failures of such selective provision, replacing the notion of relative "deservingness" with the principle of equality of access "according to need" (Harris 2018b). As Moyn (2018) argues, enacting this principle in the interventionist welfare states established in the aftermath of World War II led to the most significant reduction in social inequalities in modern history. In contrast, the voluntarist logic underlying GoFundMe poses an existential threat to social welfare services based on solidarity risk-sharing principles, as operated in many countries for the best part of a century. ...
... We argue that healthcare is a primary good, as it enables individuals to function and flourish (Nussbaum 1999;Sen 1992), allowing them to realize their life plans and attain the Rawlsian concept of "good" as satisfaction of rational desires (Ekmekci and Arda 2015). Likewise, we agree with Moyn's (2018) criticism of the conception of human rights, and particularly social rights, which opposes the distribution logic of sufficiency as minimalist and ill-equipped to address the imperative of equality. Although not aimed at Rawls, Moyn proposed institutional design rather than legal entitlements to protection alone. ...
... Therefore, they are more effective in offering powerful new financial, human, and organizational means to achieve the political ambitions of neoliberalism, as encapsulated in the "Big Society" slogan with its evocation of the virtues of a small state with greatly devolved powers and the importance of community and citizens' autonomy (Bulley and Sokhi-Bulley 2014). Yet these ambitions promote the neoliberal minimalist idea of "sufficiency," rather than addressing inequalities in individuals' possession of the good things in life (Moyn 2018). Ideally, GoFundMe and other platforms involved in welfare provision should become online spaces that highlight structural inefficiencies and emphasize how these might be collectively addressed, rather than being concerned solely with addressing unmet needs to make profits. ...
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Despite crowdfunding platforms’ growing involvement in financing welfare, related ethical issues have received little scholarly attention. To address this gap, we focus on GoFundMe, the leading welfare crowdfunding platform in the US, to examine whether it facilitates the establishment of a just society that democratizes access to funding. Informed by Rawls’s ethics, we conduct a comprehensive analysis, arguing that GoFundMe’s modus operandi merits criticism. We advance three interrelated arguments for why GoFundMe is morally problematic. First, it distributes information and primary goods unfairly, perpetuating inequalities that disadvantage the most vulnerable. Second, it uses narratives that may distract public attention from systemic flaws in welfare provision, potentially reducing social pressure for institutional reform. Third, its emphasis on individual choice and responsibility may contribute to momentum for neoliberal policymaking. We show why scholars, policymakers, and platforms should engage in debate about regulating welfare crowdfunding activities to improve their ethicality.
... pp. 534, 645.12 Freeman points out that there is a stronger affinity between Mill and Rawls's institutional designs and moral psychology than is usually thought. ...
Article
This paper evaluates the relevance of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in addressing justice within the Anthropocene, focusing on climate change. The Anthropocene marks a period of significant human impact on ecosystems, highlighted by the Trinity Test and the Great Acceleration. The study examines three policy paths: sustainable development, a steady-state economy, and degrowth. While Rawls's influence on political theory is undeniable, critiques by Katrina Forrester suggest his framework may overlook crucial issues like power dynamics. This paper argues for the continued relevance of Rawls's focus on moral psychology and motivation, particularly in intergenerational justice. It narrows the scope to motivations for caring about future generations and reassesses Rawls's assumptions about economic growth. Through the concept of "theodicy of difference," it challenges the notion that Rawls presupposed growth, ultimately supporting the applicability of his theory in contemporary environmental discussions.
... The latter implies peacemaking probably becomes much less Burkean and more focussed on reform, experimentation, and much improved systems of law, government, and institutions, as well as equality, rights, justice, and sustainability as responses. The performances of the Arts, their ability to transcend convention, boundaries, and systemic enclosures juxtaposes with the brutal oversimplifications of war and violence as power has been historically transmitted through empires, states, militaries, alliances, international political economy, and classes to the modern era of rights expansion (Moyn 2019). From stages four to six artpeace thus invites a broad social and subaltern consideration of the philosophical, ethical considerations of war as a political tool or historical event. ...
... Even critics of rights claims emphasize their ubiquity as an all-too-common tongue of democratic expression (Glendon, 2008). Scholars debate the efficacy of rights claims to translate into materialist benefits beyond legalistic protections (Holmes and Sunstein, 1999;Kornbluh, 2007;Moyn, 2018;Tani, 2016). In practice, minoritized Americans in particular have repeatedly turned to rights for basic protections. ...
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While the younger generation immerses itself in AI technologies, governmental bodies are at the initial stages of investigating the technology’s implications on our rights and how it will be best regulated. There is an opportunity to complement AI education with civic understanding. This work introduces the “AI and human rights” curriculum, which consists of seven lessons on human rights, how technology shapes our rights, and the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. We summarize the experience of 50 middle school students who participated in a rights-based AI legislative simulation. Lastly, we will provide recommendations for how to engage youth in AI and human rights topics. We aim to share this work to raise awareness about the significance of AI literacy for youth citizenship while providing valuable guidance to educators and policy-makers seeking to implement similar initiatives.
... It offers, moreover, a different grounding for critique than the discourse of human rights. Following Moyn (2018), it changes the focus from the glaring insufficiency of rights within migration control to discuss the equally glaring inequality and social injustice. ...
... Alternatively, rights -both as moral and legal frameworks -have long been criticized for neglecting questions of distribution. As minimum standards, they may fail to provide a vocabulary as to how limited resources, benefits and burdens ought to be shared between different individuals (Moyn, 2018). Rights may also prove poor tools for mediating trade-offs, particularly where one person's assertion of a right may limit another person's ability to enjoy the same or other rights. ...
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Human rights arguments have been successful before several domestic courts across Europe in imposing more ambitious action in cutting greenhouse gas emissions upon governments. Yet, the integration of climate justice concerns in those judicial decisions have been insufficiently studied. This paper seeks to contribute to such endeavor by analyzing the cases of Urgenda v. The Netherlands, Klimaatzaak v. Belgium and Neuebauer v. Germany against the climate justice framework. In Part One we set out our analytical framework. A climate justice approach acknowledges that climate mitigation, like the effects of climate change itself, is distributional in nature. In particular, climate justice highlights the unequal distribution of burdens and benefits across three dimensions: international (justice between states); intergenerational (justice between generations); and intragenerational (justice between social groups along socio-economic, racial and gender determinants). In Part Two, we offer a close reading of three key rights-based mitigation decisions to evaluate how judges have accounted for the various dimensions of climate justice. Detailing the contrasted approaches of climate justice in those decisions, we also point to a common reluctance to engage in intragenerational justice reflected in the failure to fashion rights-based obligations which take into account the inequalities across communities and social groups.
... These values, so far, have been pushed into the shadows. Standard human rights, being silent on global redistribution questions, are diverting attention from the pressing structural inequalities/injustices in the world (Moyn, 2018). Röpke thinks "that social and economic rights became adjuncts to humanitarian philanthropy, which viewed global poverty through the lens of humanitarian suffering, not structural inequality" (Röpke, 1942, p. 1). ...
... Samtidig betyr det å ha formelle rettigheter i lov ikke nødvendigvis at det er enkelt å få dem fullt ut realisert. Moyn (2018) argumenterer for viktigheten av menneskerettigheter som basis for å sikre frihet og velferd for alle mennesker, men påpeker samtidig at et rettighetsspor som ikke tar økonomisk og sosial ulikhet i betraktning, er dømt til å feile. Dette er fordi muligheten den enkelte har til å nyttiggjøre seg eksisterende rettigheter, ikke er likt fordelt. ...
Technical Report
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Notatet presenterer funn fra en kvalitativ studie av hvordan barn og unge med ulike typer funksjonsnedsettelser har opplevd tilbudet av velferdstjenester før, under og etter COVID-19 pandemien. Studien fremhever de unges opplevelse av tilgang til tjenestene, samsvar mellom tjenestetilbud og deres behov, og om velferdstilbudet bidrar til en følelse av inkludering. Undersøkelsen baserer seg på to intervjurunder med 17 barn og unge mellom 13 og 25 år. Informantene har ulike typer funksjonsnedsettelser og forskjellige opplevelser av velferdstjenestene.
... On the notion of the 'talented tenth' in Du Bois's thought, see: Gooding-Williams (2009); Taylor (2021). 5 On such exclusions in post-WWII welfare states, see also: Moyn (2018). 6 See also on this point: Rabaka (2020). ...
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This article addresses the recent interest in Black Internationalism in the history of political thought and related fields by engaging with a portion of W. E. B. Du Bois’s (1868–1963) work. It examines in particular how Du Bois treats Africa in his published and unpublished writings from the 1910s to the 1940s in light of the challenges of world war and continued imperial expansionism in the global South. I argue that through a rhetorical framing of problems on the continent, and by situating Africa in relation to global economic problems as well as the goal of long-lasting peace, Du Bois comes up with novel approaches to war and empire, as well as solutions to the problems that they pose. I conclude by reflecting on how he can contribute to debates on Black Internationalism today.
... These were opposed by a 'peace fighter' carrying a shield with a dove on it, and by a child ploughing the sea, drawn by a winged horse. 21 His support and recognition of peace movements both endorsed and heightened the transnational and transversal 'rights' revolution that emerged after WWII, which challenged war and uncovered structural forms of violence (Moyn, 2019). ...
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Art has apparently followed political power for much of history, while avoiding representations of social, subaltern, and political resistance, or experimentation with new approaches to emancipation. Less obviously, however, this article outlines how a creative synthesis of critique, politics, and representation has led to an evolving form of 'artpeace'. This concept appears to have been related to power and was thus limited and Eurocentric in the past, but more importantly it has also provided a platform for critical agency, resistance, and experimentation, with implications for the politics of peacemaking. This article outlines what this means for various strands of artpeace and their possible conceptual implications.
... Third, this research agenda investigates on how and under which conditions do the super-rich employ strategic legitimization tactics in order to justify the perpetuation of material inequality and oligarchic power. The project examines whether they weaponize human rights and other normatively appealing narratives (e.g., development, security, justice, fairness, meritocracy, etc.) by underscoring a distributive politics that places private property rights and unrestricted wealth accumulation as the quintessential ordering principles of their preferred political economy (Moyn, 2018;Regilme, 2020b;Regilme, 2023b;Whyte, 2019). The research agenda hypothesizes that the super-rich frame materially poor individuals as deserving losers in a wealth accumulation-oriented society and argues that poverty emerges from personal inabilities to adapt in highly competitive economy. ...
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This article addresses an important but understudied puzzle in European Union Studies: the super-rich's influence on domestic and transnational discourses, policies and institutions for wealth defence, security and legitimacy. It examines the super-rich's impact on democratic governance and human rights claims of marginalized groups, and how states, civil society and non-oligarchic entities contest oligarchic rule. The article proposes a research agenda to determine if Europe can be seen as an oligarchic constitutional order, characterized by governance practices and authority structures deeply intertwined with the super-rich's interests in transnational and domestic politics. The framework in this research agenda underscores how institutional arrangements , legitimating principles, regulatory practices and procedural systems increasingly favour the super-rich, reflecting a dominant mode of transnational governance rooted in extreme socioeconomic stratification. The research agenda aims to elucidate the tension between wealth and democratic governance, particularly how policies and normative discourses often align with the super-rich's interests despite resistance from marginalized groups.
... Samuel Moyn clearly mentioned this problem, he states his opinion that the human rights revolutions largely overlooked economic and social rights, and while ideals of how to distribute life's benefits, the revolutions missed the strong commitment to distribute equality. [7] Despite not directly reading the VDPA, Moyn explains the same trend that seemingly happening towards declarations in general. The missed information regarding economic rights has also been overlooked within the limited discussion of VDPA. ...
Article
This paper examines the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA), adopted in 1993, as a pivotal document in the post-Cold War era that aimed to consolidate and reaffirm universal human rights principles. While the VDPA successfully highlighted the rights of marginalized groups such as women, children, indigenous people, and those with disabilities, it notably falls short in addressing economic rights. The paper argues that the VDPA’s lack of clear guidance on economic rights is a significant omission, especially given the economic upheavals of the 1990s, including high unemployment and the transition to market economies. Through an analysis of primary and secondary sources, the paper reveals that the VDPA’s failure to include detailed provisions for economic rights leaves a critical gap in the protection of individuals’ right to economic participation and well-being. The conclusion calls for a reorganization of human rights frameworks to include economic rights as essential for the realization of human dignity and equality.
... Eles podem ser requisitados como mínimos de justiça, mas não como uma concepção suficiente de justiça. É isso que Samuel Moyn (2018) observou, ao mostrar que os direitos humanos eram "not enough". ...
Article
Os direitos do homem parecem definir não apenas um direito à vida, mas também um direito à vida para além da vida: não apenas um direito de permanecer vivo, com uma existência biológica contínua, mas também um direito a uma vida livre, uma vida com liberdade e proteção iguais para todos por meio do direito. Nesse sentido, os direitos do homem e a vida são indissociáveis, e isso fora de um paradigma de biopoder. O objetivo desta contribuição é, portanto, complexificar a reflexão sobre a relação entre o direito e a vida, considerando um direito à vida para além da vida, a partir de três dialéticas decorrentes de três contradições que afetam os direitos humanos.Palavras-chave: Direitos humanos; liberdade, capacidades.
... Second, there are important questions about the role played by human rights regime in diverting political energies away from other utopias proposed by revolutionary struggles in the then recently decolonized states of the Global South and continued patterns of paternalistic universalism in the architecture of the human rights regime set up in the shadow of empire and racism (Moyn 2010). In later work, Moyn (2018) traces the development of theories of global justice in Anglo-American political philosophy against the backdrop of decolonization as well as the New International Economic Order, and the increasing orientation of the field toward a rights-based approach. This, he suggests, oriented the field away from a focus on structures of persistent inequality to providing justice to "deserving individuals" through legal minimums without engaging deeply with structural analyses (Moyn 2018, 159). ...
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How might the ideas and practices of Global South migrants and activists inform normative frameworks and conceptual repertoires that political theorists and activists bring to bear on questions regarding justice and migration? Taking seriously the call for conceptual innovation to move beyond Eurocentrism this article builds on oral histories collected from refugees and migrants from the Tribal Areas of Pakistan to argue that the concept of haqq raises important questions about the reliance on statist justice in contemporary theorizing about migration ethics and provides insights into alternative ethical concerns. Ideas and practices of haqq foreground social relationships as well as the imbrication of responsibility and entitlement for communities and individuals. Crucially, engagement with haqq helps dislodge assumptions regarding state-enforced rights as universal vehicles of justice. Consequently, different ethical questions and imaginaries become available for consideration that resonate much beyond debates about migration.
... In addition to negative obligations that require the state to not interfere in the enjoyment of human rights, human rights also create positive obligations that require active measures from the state (Shelton and Gould 2013). The understanding of the subject of human rights law has been broadened to children, for example, but criticism of human rights still questions the premises of human rights law, such as the focus on the liberal, individual subject of rights (e.g., Grear 2011, Moyn 2018. Moreover, in the context of children's rights research, it has been argued that a focus on implementation of human rights standards without problematizing them assumes a consensus on the content of rights (Reynaert et al. 2012, Quennerstedt 2013. ...
... The general picture that emerges is that human rights have been made to fit the political economy of neoliberalism, which prioritizes the protection of market freedoms and undistorted competition over social welfare considerations. This occurred partly because the simultaneous rise of human rights and neoliberalism displaced alternative concepts of justice (Moyn 2014, 150), such as the New International Economic Order (NIEO) proposal by postcolonial states for a more equitable global economic system, or Rawls's egalitarian difference principle (Moyn 2018). The result was an emphasis on individual human rights violations, neglecting structural accounts of such violations and broader human suffering (Moyn 2014, 159). ...
... It works with theories, assumptions, and benchmarks for this. As signalled in preceding paragraphs, the 'North-Western' traditions that I teach in have inherited problematic colonialist and other ideological thought with regard to their modelling, and mainlining, of the individual, rational, reasoning, intelligent subject (Wright, 2001;D'Souza, 2018;Moyn, 2019;Katz, 2020). Corresponding rights (to vote, to perform political functions, enter into financial relations, decide about one's own body, not be discriminated against in education and career, not to be 'wrongly manipulated' in commercial advertising) have suffered as a result. ...
... It works with theories, assumptions, and benchmarks for this. As signalled in preceding paragraphs, the 'North-Western' traditions that I teach in have inherited problematic colonialist and other ideological thought with regard to their modelling, and mainlining, of the individual, rational, reasoning, intelligent subject (Wright, 2001;D'Souza, 2018;Moyn, 2019;Katz, 2020). Corresponding rights (to vote, to perform political functions, enter into financial relations, decide about one's own body, not be discriminated against in education and career, not to be 'wrongly manipulated' in commercial advertising) have suffered as a result. ...
... Each of them is useful. So, for instance, Samuel Moyn's work on the history of international human rights is a powerful use of a debunking genealogy in the sense that he shows that the emergence and eventual dominance of the human rights paradigm effectively sapped the revolutionary and radical leftist potential from the movement (Moyn, 2014(Moyn, , 2018. This is a debunking move because it then makes us question the value or potential of the paradigm, and it makes us want to act. ...
Article
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Today most critical theorists who deploy history use a genealogical method forged by Nietzsche and Foucault. This genealogical approach now dominates historically inflected critique. But not all genealogical writings today, nor all philosophical debates surrounding genealogy, advance the goals of critical philosophy. It is crucial now that we assess the value of genealogical critiques. The proper metric against which to evaluate such work is whether it contributes to transforming ourselves, others, and society in a valuable way. In this article, I propose that we use the term “critical genealogy” to identify those genealogical practices that positively nourish our activity and, thereby, advance the ambition of critical philosophy.
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This article examines Gillian Rose's understanding of the relationship between universality and diremption in the capitalist economy and the capitalist state. Adopting Rose's triadic discussion in The Broken Middle, I contrast her thought with Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg. Rose's investigation of the ‘political diremption’ of the modern state is conducted via a critical appraisal of Arendt's oeuvre. While Arendt is one of the most celebrated thinkers today, Rose's analysis has been virtually ignored. Strikingly, Rose makes a novel distinction between the problematic of diremption between economy and state in Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism and the idealism of The Human Condition. Rose argues that Arendt's shift is ahistorical and betrays the radical potential of her best insights. This critique helps assess current debates over universal human rights and the relation between the capitalist economy and nation-state. Identifying the exclusions of citizenship, Rose advances a politics of universal freedom from ‘the broken middle’.
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Vilken roll kan mänskliga rättigheter spela för att synliggöra och motverka olika former av social och ekonomisk ojämlikhet? Sedan mitten av 2010-talet har detta blivit en central frågeställning för både forskare och praktiker inom fältet för mänskliga rättigheter. Diskussionen intensifierades i samband med eurokrisen 2016 och publiceringen av Thomas Pikettys Capital in the twenty-first century och fick ytterligare bränsle under och i efterdyningarna av covid-19-pandemin. Internationellt har frågan lyfts av bland andra FN:s specialrapportör för extrem fattigdom. År 2015 hävdade den dåvarande mandatinnehavaren, Philip Alston, att även om det inte finns en explicit rätt till ekonomisk jämlikhet i det internationella ramverket, är alltför djupa ojämlikheter mellan människor ett hot mot grundprincipen om alla människors lika värde och rättigheter. På senare tid har FN:s högkommissarie för mänskliga rättigheter, Volker Türk, särskilt framhållit en djupgående ekonomisk ojämlikhet som ett fundamentalt hot mot mänskliga rättigheter. Han har vid flera tillfällen efterlyst initiativ för att skapa vad han kallar en människorättsbaserad ekonomi, där fokus på tillväxt och konkurrenskraft får stå tillbaka för människors faktiska levnadsvillkor. Samtidigt har flera forskare ifrågasatt vilka resurser som egentligen finns i det internationella ramverket och i teoribildningen om mänskliga rättigheter för att på ett effektivt sätt synliggöra och bekämpa extrema eller toxiska former av ojämlikhet.
Chapter
In this concluding comment we would like to sketch out, from a broader conceptual perspective, how methodologies of peace, academic and practical, are being affected by processes of digitalisation. Our main contention here is that notwithstanding some theoretical possibilities for emancipation, the current picture is more one of digital pieces rather than digital peace.
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The article shows that Fichte's conception of human rights implies concrete guidelines for the economic organization of states and international relations. First, I elucidate Fichte's view on human rights at the domestic level. Fichte's complex theory of human rights consists in a meta-right to live in a state that secures at least two “original rights”: a right to bodily inviolability and a right to sufficient property. I focus on the latter. Due to Fichte's unorthodox view of property rights as rights to actions rather than objects, this amounts to a right to work. This right, according to Fichte, must be realized in a planned economy. Second, I focus on the global level. Fichte's right to sufficient (unorthodox) property has implications for three dimensions of global justice: cosmopolitan right, the right of nations and commercial relations. Third, I draw some insights from thinking through Fichte's global material constitution for long observed conceptual tensions regarding his political and legal philosophy, namely between freedom and security as well as cosmopolitanism and nationalism, and for current debates in politics and political theory.
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