Charles R. Beitz

Not an especially easy book to absorb, but well worth the effort. Beitz is a singular representative of the "human rights as practice" school, and thus his meticulously structured arguments comprehensively present the case for the view that human rights, rather than being grounded in a foundational moral nature of "humans as such," is a sui generis emergent global practice of states as far as it gives reasons for external intervention when a state fails to protect certain defined interests of its own citizens. Beitz reviews some of the consequences of this view (e.g., while there may be a human right to self-determination, there is not one to democracy). The reader may not (even should not) agree with all details of his thesis, but it would be difficult to name a more representative text for this point of view.… (meer)