Human rights are inherently universal, based on the dignity of human beings, and binding on all governments or other exercisers of authority at all times. Alternatively, "human rights" is an item of contemporary Western and capitalist ideology, useful primarily as a stick with which to beat troublesome Third World states when they offend Western sensibility or (especially) Western interests.
These contrasting positions embody the international dialogue regarding human rights, at least on the level that gets reported in the mass media. The essays in Human Rights: Concepts, Contests, Contingencies, edited by Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), all seek in various ways to go beyond this simple (and simplistic) dichotomy to address the more complex realities of what we mean in speaking of human rights, and what role the human-rights discourse plays in international affairs and in the evolution of law.
Whatever else can be said of human rights, the subject has become increasingly prominent in international affairs. Human-rights organizations figure prominently among the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that have gained a sort of amicus curiae standing in the United Nations. The case for decolonization was posed largely in terms of human rights; if some Asian political leaders have criticized human rights standards as Eurocentric, none would accept that (say) the West had a right to express its distinctive cultural folkways through a new wave of imperialism. In one form or another, human rights has become a central feature of world discourse, and would command our attention for that reason if no other.
In "Two Concepts of Self-Determination" (pp. 25-44), Iris Young is concerned not directly with the rights of individuals, but with those of communities -- most specifically, the rights of so-called indigenous communities (such as Native American Indians on reservations) to s...