ABSTRACT
By ‘legalization of human rights’ I mean the practice of formulating human rights claims as legal claims and pursuing human rights objectives through legal mechanisms. Although human rights also have moral, political, and other dimensions, in practice ‘legalization’ has predominated over ‘moralization’ or ‘politicization’—to such a degree that the editors have defined ‘legalization’ as an ‘almost exclusive emphasis’ on legal mechanisms. This is obviously undesirable, an unwarranted intrusion of law into other domains. Understood, however, as a strategic choice that does not exclude other perspectives, approaches, and mechanisms, heavy reliance on law to define and implement human rights has many attractions. These will be my focus here.
