ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to illuminate the status of prevailing international human rights theory by contributing a genealogical perspective to the contemporary theorizing. It examines the origins of the reigning theoretical framework by considering the historical and political circumstances that attended the development of the theory. The chapter explains how a genealogical approach clarifies problems in the reigning paradigm. It explores further the dichotomies in the prevailing theory, thereby clarifying the puzzling status of contemporary human rights theory. The chapter also examines the international human rights movement, incorporating a genealogical perspective and clarifying the contemporary movement’s intimate and uneasy relation to its original historical and political circumstances. It presents a more coherent view of the existing international human rights normative apparatus. The human rights movement was nurtured by the concomitant development of a new international legal system, as well as by the parallel explosion of constitutionalism.
