Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T06:15:47.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Who Do We Think We Are?

Human Rights in a Time of Ecological Change

from Part II - Unmaking International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2022

Usha Natarajan
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Julia Dehm
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria
Get access

Summary

This chapter explores the relationship between human rights and the environment. It begins by asking ‘who 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 chapter 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 chapter challenges human rights as a hubristic organizing category and observes that the ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions, artificially separated in the chapter, 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 wellbeing and environmental struggles need to engage with and understand each other outside the unproductive rubric of rights discourse.

Type
Chapter
Information
Locating Nature
Making and Unmaking International Law
, pp. 200 - 228
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×