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Human rights and the rights of states: a relational account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Ariel Zylberman
Ariel Zylberman*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
*
Email: arielzylberman@gmail.com
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Abstract

What is the relationship between human rights and the rights of states? Roughly, while cosmopolitans insist that international morality must regard as basic the interests of individuals, statists maintain that the state is of fundamental moral significance. This article defends a relational version of statism. Human rights are ultimately grounded in a relational norm of reciprocal independence and set limits to the exercise of public authority, but, contra the cosmopolitan, the state is of fundamental moral significance. A relational account promises to justify a limited conception of state sovereignty while avoiding the familiar cosmopolitan criticisms of statist accounts.

Keywords

Cosmopolitanismhuman rightsrelational normativitystate sovereignty
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , June 2016 , pp. 291 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2016

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