ABSTRACT
The liberal international order founded after the Second World War is under assault, threatened by shifts in geopolitics, most notably by the rise of Asia, particularly China, as an economic rival to the West following the global financial crisis of 2008. The system the League created was highly susceptible to political manipulation, in which minority states, minorities, and kin-states all promoted nationalist agendas, instead of co-operating to settle disputes in question. The “postcolonial transformation” affected the UN human rights project in other ways. It is far too premature to dismiss rights as an ideal of a passing era. The post-Second World War human rights project is not irrelevant – its resilience stemming, in part, from its ability to change with the times. The severity of forces undermining human rights and the liberal order may be accelerating because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
