ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the processes of semantic slippage and the transformation of ideas and institutions over time, all of which could be subsumed under the term 'conceptual hybridity'. In order better to understand the meaning of currently emerging hybrid, or third generation, human rights, it is necessary to discuss movements of resistance that preceded today's more covert and gradual changes in international human rights law. The chapter shows how the increasingly significant shifts in the body of human rights texts can be seen as reflecting the heteroglossia – the multiplicity of different norms, values and cultural frameworks – characterising the negotiations at human rights bodies. It explores how peace is being promoted at the universal, regional and national levels, as well as the hybridisation processes occurring on each of these levels. With increasing globalisation and tectonic shifts in the geopolitical landscape, there is growing emphasis on bringing previously unrepresented cultures, norms and values into the international human rights system.
