ABSTRACT
In international politics, human rights advocates invoke principles of fair and just treatment as a basis for the treatment of human beings in politically, culturally, and economically contested contexts. Human rights law, strategically conceived and developed by transnational advocates with sympathetic state and intergovernmental organization partners, made more legally oriented rights claims possible and expanded both legal and discursive resources of human rights advocates. The structure of sovereignty in international politics still protects state prerogative with regard to human rights, to a great degree. Many treatments of justice in philosophy and political theory focus necessarily on precise clarifications of its limits and corresponding obligations, or duties, imposed on parties to injustice and on bystanders. The shortage of well-defined routes for action toward substantive justice understandably poses a challenge for mobilization on behalf of substantive justice concerns.
