A Conversation marking the publication of the book Human Rights from a Third World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law, edited by José-Manuel Barreto.

Date: 10 Jun 2014
Time: 13:00–15:00
Place: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Juristische Fakultät, Room E23, Unter den Linden 9, 10099 Berlin

Walter Mignolo (Duke), Sabine Broeck (Bremen), Manuela Boatca (FU Berlin), Jose-Manuel Barreto (Rechtskulturen Postdoctoral Fellow 2013-2014)

The conventional theory and history of human rights was constructed out of European events and in the wake of the struggles against absolutism and state violence. This book goes beyond the Eurocentric understanding of human rights by linking them to the history of the modern world as a whole since the times of the Conquest of America, and to the 500 years old tradition of resistance against colonialism. It also traces the contribution made by Third World countries to the formation of contemporary international human rights law. Taking up insights developed by Non-Eurocentric schools of thinking, among them Postcolonial and Decolonial Theory, Subaltern Studies, Black Radical Thinking and the Third World Approach to International Law, this collection sketches a new history and philosophy of human rights, one more able to face the challenges posed by current and future processes of globalisation and neo-colonialism. Speakers will advance further this line of inquiry drawing from their previous engagements with the Geopolitics of Knowledge, the critique of Critical Theory and the Decolonisation of Sociology.