ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the theoretical argument of the monograph and reinterprets why Western European states promote International Human Rights Law (IHRL). The argument is built on contributions from critical legal scholars and the English School of International Relations, and it is presented as an alternative to both normative cosmopolitanism and realist disbelief based on the systemic constraints inherent to the international legal system. In essence, IHRL has evolved as a result of a tension between two forces: On the one hand, a European understanding of international society, based on order, the centrality of the state, and a minimalist conception of human rights; on the other hand, a civil society and UN-promoted, mostly Western but slightly broader conception of human rights. The chapter presents six propositions derived from Order-versus-Justice. The first two propositions are time-dependent, and concern the intensity with which Western European states are likely to promote or to resist a human rights norm at earlier and later stages of the norm’s life. The remaining four propositions look at the nature of the norm itself, and in particular, its clarity, its burden in terms of requirements for the state, its fitness within liberalism, and the support received from norm entrepreneurs.
