Beyond the Dislocation(s) of Human Rights

Approaches that analyse disruptions to the cogency of human rights discourse in terms of `the exception', rather than in terms that are internal to that field, are vulnerable to accusations of nihilism. Three such analyses of dislocation are reviewed here: a betrayal of individual liberty that exceptional political circumstance requires for the securing of a universal right to liberty (Ignatieff, 2004); the complicity of human rights discourse in the strengthening of political powers capable of systematically violating human freedoms (Douzinas, 2000); and the insufficiency of knowledge about human rights abuses to counter people's denials of rights-abuse (Cohen, 2001). In the course of interpreting their respective instances of dislocation, each of the approaches inhabits in a performative manner the same space held by the exception to the discourse. Various challenges arise as a consequence of doing so for those who look to performative engagement with dislocation as a source of progressive socio-legal pulsion. Rather than being nihilistic in form, however, these challenges are political. Moreover, the political issues that emerge differ starkly from one another, reflecting divergences in perspective regarding the nature of performativity. They include a closure of debate that can occur around the political commitments which motivate performative analyses of dislocation and, conversely, the emergence of an undetermined space of political struggle as a consequence of new practices that transpire from performative responses to dislocation.