ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ideas of consensus and conflict, their place in human rights politics, and the approach of human rights to come requires such to be re-engaged. The discourse of human rights is upheld as unique in its ability to facilitate international consensus between diverse states, nations and cultures and this ability appears closely linked to the politico-legal significance and authority of human rights in the contemporary era. The concept of human rights to come involves a rejection of the consensus approach to human rights in favour of a foregrounding of the futural and the unsettlement or lack of closure that is central to rights and their politics. An emphasis on consensus can be detected in the politics and use of human rights at a more local level. A number of consensus-focused narratives can be detected as characterising mainstream understandings of human rights, particularly in their form as international human rights.
