Debating The Endtimes of Human Rights. Activism and Institutions in a Neo-Westphalian World

This collection of ten essays discusses Stephen Hopgood’s thesis that the future for human rights looks gloomy in a multipolar world of renewed sovereignty, resurgent religion and the rollback of universal human rights.

The future of the global human rights regime and movement

In his recent book The Endtimes of Human Rights (2013) Stephen Hopgood argues that human rights are past their sell-by date. In a multipolar and postsecular world political and public support for overambitious projects as international human rights, the International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect is waning. European universalism is out, worldwide particularism is in.

In Debating The Endtimes of Human Rights, a collection of original essays published by Strategic Studies, nine human rights experts critically discuss Hopgood’s provocations, challenge his presumptions, agree with some of his arguments yet often reach opposite conclusions.

Edited by Doutje Lettinga and Lars van Troost (Strategic Studies, an initiative of Amnesty International Netherlands). Contributors: Michael Barnett, Daan Bronkhorst, Steve Crawshaw, Stephen Hopgood, Frank Johansson, Stephen Lamony, Todd Landman, Noel Morada, César Rodriguez-Garavito and Monica Duffy