Add international courts to The Idea of Human Rights and stir … on Beitz’ The Idea of Human Rights after 10 years

ABSTRACT

These reflections elaborates the theory of The Idea of Human Rights by addressing a topic that theory attempts to bracket: international and regional judicialization in the form of international courts and tribunals. Using the method of reflective equilibrium, the article argues that this exclusion is inconsistent. Including these international courts and tribunals (‘ICs’) prompts several changes to the original theory, and opens new research questions. The original theory is on the one hand too narrow regarding both the objectives and tools of international mechanisms of corrective concern. The account should consider further subsidiary modes of support. On the other hand the theory is too broad, in that it gives insufficient guidance to the judges of ICs and others able to effect changes. This leaves the theory incomplete, and open to similar criticism as the book raised against others. Accounts of the theory presented in The Idea of Human Rights,and of ICs and their roles regarding human rights allow us to explore some implications of ICs for The Idea of Human Rights.We then consider how if at all The Idea of Human Rights can guide international judges.

KEYWORDS:

• Charles Beitz
• human rights
• international courts
• reflective equilibrium

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for comments received at a conference in Minho, Portugal 14 July 2019 and a PluriCourts seminar March 19 2019, and from extensive and constructive comments by David Alvarez and an anonymous reviewer.

Disclosure statement

- No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This article was partly supported by Norges forskningsråd project number 223274 – PluriCourts The Legitimacy of the International Judiciary.