Home › Features › Essays › The Attack on Human Rights

The Attack on Human Rights

Michael Ignatieff
November/December 2001
Summary -- 

The excessive individualism in Western human rights doctrine has been criticized by the Islamic world, East Asia, and some within the West itself. But human rights advocates need not apologize; human rights are popular and necessary worldwide precisely because they protect individuals against group authority.

Michael Ignatieff is Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. This essay is adapted from his latest book, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. Copyright (c) 2001 by Princeton University Press.

We're sorry, but Foreign Affairs does not have the copyright to display this article online.

Related

Essay, Nov/Dec 2002
The Responsibility to Protect
Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun

Throughout the humanitarian crises of the 1990s, the international community failed to come up with rules on how and when to intervene, and under whose authority. Despite the new focus on terrorism, these debates will not go away. The issue must be reframed as an argument not about the "right to intervene" but about the "reponsibility to protect" that all sovereign states owe to their citizens.

Read
Essay, Jan/Feb 2001
Are Human Rights Universal?
Thomas M. Franck

More and more, the universality of human rights is being challenged. But groups such as the Taliban, who claim to stand for specific values, rarely speak for those they supposedly represent. Herewith a defense of truly global human rights.

Read
Essay, Jul 1973
One Year After Stockholm
Maurice F. Strong

Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being." He bears "a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations." And states have "the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction."

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

November/December 2009 / 6, 88
Essay
In the Quicksands of Somalia
Bronwyn Bruton

Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance.
Read