Abstract
This article explores the relationship between international human rights law and the environment. It begins with asking “who do we think we are” to understand the forms of subjecthood and subjectivity produced by human rights. It argues that human rights normalize a series of false conceptions about our collective self that have detrimental social and ecological consequences. The article next examines the question of “where we think we are”, probing the ontological rift between humans as subjects of rights and “the environment” as the repository of resources with which to satisfy human entitlements. The article challenges human rights as a hubristic organizing category and observes that the ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions, artificially separated within this article, serve to show that the way humans treat each other is inextricable from the way we treat nature. To undo relationships of mastery, ownership, and violence between the subjects and objects of human rights law, projects for human well-being and environmental struggles need to engage with and understand each other outside the unproductive rubric of rights discourse.
First Page
39
Recommended Citation
Usha
Natarajan
Who Do We Think We Are? Human Rights in a Time of Ecological Change,
22
Loy. U. Chi. Int'l L. Rev.
39
().
Available at:
https://lawecommons.luc.edu/lucilr/vol22/iss1/3