ABSTRACT
The assumption that populations from the global South tend to reject human rights in part because they question the content of human rights norms so prevalent in human rights advocacy and scholarship circles is problematic because it obscures the lived experience and potential significance of human rights in many Southern contexts. In many instances, non-Western populations “want human rights” but have little reason to place faith in their actual promise. Conversely, when avenues for principled practice emerge, the human rights paradigm can be embraced by Southern populations, not only as a vehicle for challenging prevailing injustice or suffering in these societies, but also as a way of meeting a need to experience principled action. In other words, both the content and the practice of human right must be persuasive. The chapter presents the trajectory of human rights politics in the Middle East to demonstrate how movements from the global South are currently transforming human rights practice in ways that render it more compatible with its promise and are in the process breathing new life into the human rights project.
