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Coutinho, Luis Pereira --- "The practice-independency of human rights" [2019] ELECD 1807; in La Torre, Massimo; Niglia, Leone; Susi, Mart (eds), "The Quest for Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 49

Book Title: The Quest for Rights

Editor(s): La Torre, Massimo; Niglia, Leone; Susi, Mart

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: The practice-independency of human rights

Author(s): Coutinho, Luís Pereira

Number of pages: 15

Abstract/Description:

It is inadequate to transfer the logic of practice-dependency, as applied to legal rights, to human rights. Legal rights are practice-dependent - i.e. dependent on the practice of law or on ‘law as practice’ - since their logic is still the authoritative logic of political sovereignty. On the contrary, the idea of human rights is antithetical to that logic. Human rights constitute a critical and reactive standard to authoritative practices on which, therefore, they cannot depend.