Domesticating Human Rights ― A Reappraisal of Their Cultural-political Critiques and Their Imperialistic Use

This book develops a philosophical conception of human rights that responds satisfactorily to the challenges raised by cultural and political critics of human rights, who contend that the contemporary human rights movement is promoting an imperialist ideology, and that the humanitarian intervention for protecting human rights is a neo-colonialism. These claims affect the normativity and effectiveness of human rights; that is why they have to be taken seriously. At the same time, the same philosophical account dismisses the imperialist crusaders who support the imperialistic use of human rights by the West to advance liberal culture. 

Thus, after elaborating and exposing these criticisms, the book confronts them to the human rights theories of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, in order to see whether they can be addressed. Unfortunately, they are not. Therefore, having shown that these two philosophical accounts of human rights do not respond convincingly to those the postcolonial challenges, the book provides an alternative conception that draws the understanding of human rights from local practices. It is a multilayer conception which is not centered on state, but rather integrates it in a larger web of actors involved in shaping the practice and meaning of human rights. Confronted to the challenges, this new conception offers a promising way for addressing them satisfactorily, and it even sheds new light to the classical questions of universality of human rights, as well as the tension between universalism and relativism.

Fidele Ingiyimbere was born in Burundi and grew up there, where he had his primary and secondary education. He owns a BA in Philosophy from les Facultes Jesuites de Paris (Centre Sevres), an MS in Philosophy from Universite Catholique d’Afrique Centrale-Institut Catholique de Yaounde-Cameroun, and MA and a PhD in Philosophy from Boston College. He also holds a BA in Theology from Hekima University College in Nairobi-Kenya and STL from Boston College. His research covers areas of phenomenology and political-social questions, with special attention to the African context. His publications include a book on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Etre et Expression, esquisse d’une ontologie chez Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and another on Human Rights as Means for Peace: The Catholic Understanding of Human Rights and the Catholic Church in Burundi, and many articles in various journals. My current interests is to continue my theological reflection on the Catholic Church in Burundi from an ethical perspective, and apply phenomenology to the understanding of human rights, as well as to engage with postcolonial discourse with regard to African context.