Human rights & Politics general

What are some books that talk about either human rights in general or the history of human rights? Books that ex. challenges the concept, or criticizes it, or something like that.

Also feel free to discuss books about politics in general.

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Human Rights in International Relations: Forsythe
Beyond Human Rights: de Benoist

Thanks! Already got de Benoist recommend and it seems like an interesting read, I'll check out Forsythe too.

The earlier proponents of Human Rights are Locke and Rousseau, which were popularised through the Glorious Revolution in England and the Declaration of Rights, The American Revolution and the Bill of Rights, and obviously in the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The idea of Human Rights—that is, rights divorced from citizenry and station (for the most part)—was in a way a reactionary movement against entrenched Monarchies and Aristocracies, which i suppose you could call structural discrimination in society and law. Having an idea based upon a common humanity tied into what i guess you could call one of the great "ur-ideas" or Unit Ideas of Liberalism: Equality. It also was used as a basis of law to hold these entrenched political structures to an account which they could previously never be; the shift towards humanism and an anthropocentric conception of rights allowed, or perhaps caused, the divine right of kings to be abolished and a Blue Blood to be charged the same as a beggar or a thief—after all, they were only human. This was the genesis of a truly popular government, and it was heralded with the dull thunk of poor Louis' head on the scaffold floor (though i suppose you could see Charles I as the first example). It really is difficult to overstate the importance of that execution on 21st January 1793. Monarchy finds much of its power in symbolism, and to see what was once considered an untouchable body hauled up in front of the crowd and unceremoniously executed like a common criminal absolutely shattered the symbol of monarchy beyond repair in France. But i digress, Liberalism was naturally directed towards a universalising mission, and much of its rituals and slogans were intimately tied with this concept of human equality. Napoleon's conquest of Europe and the forced adoption of the Napoleonic Code was massively responsible from the spread of the concept of human rights; so even if his usurpation of power was against the principle of human equality, in the end he truly was a champion of the revolution. This was further helped by the ascendancy of the UK and Pax Britannia, which caused many other countries to imitate the home of liberalism owing to this newfound prestige. This long peace fermented a highly cosmopolitan spirit in Europe, further weakening the idea of national difference and reinforcing the concept of human equality. WWI destroyed this illusion in the torn mud and bloody trenches of modern industrialised mass warfare. However, the outcome of this war was the dismantling of the few true monarchies that remained in Europe, the romantic image of aristocracy that had always been tied to war, and perhaps more importantly the ascension of the United States to a major world power.

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Wilson's Fourteen Points and the creation of the ill-fated League of Nations were a major milestone in the development of true Human Rights, but it would take until WW2 for them to be formally instituted by the UN. I think much of that too was a reaction against the particularism of Nazi ideology—the events of the holocaust and the treatment of the mentally and physically retareded were precisely a result of the abandonment of the human as the core of rights. Since then, the Cold War aided in perpetuating the idea of liberty and equality among peoples, to the point where it has become one of those ideas which underlay so much of our modern social and political views that it is seen as a priori true, to the point where it is unchallengable. That's my understanding of it anyway, in short form.

Rothbard's Ethics Of Liberty

we don't have rights, only duties

Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right

Critque of practical reason
Groundwork to the metaphysics of morals
The metaphysics of morals.
Human rights is an inherently kantian idea.

Your Human Rights are only as good as your ability to defend them.