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Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Gary Teeple, The Riddle of Human Rights (Aurora: Garamond Press 2004)

THE IDEA of human rights has had an undeniably profound impact on Western society in the 20th century. Surprisingly, however, the study of human rights by Canadian academics, with the exception of scholars in law and political science, remains relatively unexplored. Gary Teeple's most recent book, alongside several other recent publications by Canadian historians, represents the emergence of a new field of study among Canadian scholars.

In The Riddle of Human Rights, Gary Teeple forwards a scathing critique of the human rights paradigm. He argues that the concept of human rights is a contradiction that reflects similar contradictions in the capitalist system. According to Teeple, human rights are not truly universal or inherent. Political rights serve the interests of the upper class whereas social rights are nothing more than concessions designed to placate the working class. Social (including economic) rights were not realized until after World War II; these rights are the result of working-class struggles and are continually under attack by hegemonic forces, particularly in the wake neo-liberalism. One example of the contradictions inherent in the idea of human rights is the entrenchment of civil rights and social rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Civil rights are exclusive by nature (limited access to social products) while social rights are inclusive (generalized rights to social products). Civil rights legitimate the state and require the state to protect private property in a system dominated by market mechanisms. But the market is unable to effectively reproduce this system on its own since access to basic goods and services may be denied by the inevitable inequities of the system. Concessions, in the form of social rights, are required to protect people from the vagaries of a system in which price mechanisms, not need, determine access to essential goods such as food and clothing. Although both civil and social rights may co-exist, the contradiction is that the complete realization of one would, by necessity, preclude the existence of the other. As a result, in socialist states human rights are only partially valid (or totally alien) because state ownership of the means of production precludes the need for civil rights, and political rights exist only within the governing party. In contrast, political rights in capitalist societies set the stage for competing factions among capital to determine which will dominate state policy.

Drawing on the history of truth and reconciliation commissions, the international criminal court and other international agencies for human rights enforcement, the author draws out the underlying problem with human rights claims today: inequality and rights violations are blamed on individual human error. Human rights agencies, by their very nature, are blind to systemic inequalities and, thus, systemic solutions. His section on NGOs, using Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as case studies, is particularly engaging, and he raises interesting questions about the repercussions of their activism. The work ends with a discussion of the future of human rights in the face of global capitalism and the implications of 9/11. The book is organized thematically and is highly accessible, with several sections dedicated to explaining difficult concepts. It would be an ideal textbook for a course on human rights.

Teeple's work is a welcome addition to stimulating debates on the implications of the human rights paradigm. But skeptics will question many of his assumptions. For instance, Teeple is not prepared to abandon the idea of human rights, but calls for a reconceptualization of human rights as a social imperative rather than a legal one designed for a market-oriented society. He recognizes that it is the link between human rights and the capitalist state or, more specifically, that it is the liberal conception of human rights that defines human rights solely as legal rights derived from the state, which limits human rights to being a tool for maintaining inequalities of wealth and power. A new conception of human rights would privilege social rights above civil rights; social rights would no longer be concessions designed to maintain the dominance of economic elites. In this new guise, human rights are presented in a broader, cultural framework in which a market-oriented society is replaced by a community focused on the fullest realization of human rights.

Is such a conception of human rights possible? Human rights are essentially a product of the state. A right does not exist until it is recognized by some kind of legal instrument enforced by a state. Even the international human rights system is statist. The United Nations' human rights agencies may seek to shame states with reports on human rights violations, but in the end it is up to individual states to interpret and apply human rights principles as they see fit. Granted, activists may make human rights claims, and such claims have a powerful moral force, but a claim does not become a right until it is recognized by the state. Those who have argued that moral suasion and social pressure are a way of enforcing human rights standards fail to appreciate the historical evolution of the human rights paradigm. A voluntary agreement by a private agency to serve blacks at a lunch counter is not a recognition of a right. Historically, human rights activists in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia have always sought legal recognition of human rights claims. It is thus questionable whether human rights could be reconceptualized in such a manner. Moreover, to divorce human rights from their capitalist/legal foundation would seem to apply the term so broadly as to make it an unwieldy and ineffective concept. The term 'human rights' is already so expansively conceived that it has become a debased form of rhetoric.

At a major conference organized at the University of British Columbia on Food and Human Rights in October 2005, a keynote speaker (a leading figure in the United Nations and the international human rights community) argued that the solution to food poverty around the world was to entrench access to nutrition as a right so that judges could step in and guarantee the poor access to food. Surely there is no greater evidence of an excessively litigious civil society than one in which judges, a cadre of elite individuals lacking democratic accountability, are assigned responsibility for the distribution of food. Teeple's most recent work forces us to consider the ramifications of a narrow, legal conception of human rights in a world where the division between the state and civil society is becoming increasingly blurred. It is an innovative argument and an essential contribution to a literature blind to the limitations of this elusive concept.


Dominique Clément University of British Columbia

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