Costas Douzinas Livres

This book, by a leading exponent of the postmodern school of legal theory, falls naturally into three parts. The first part advances a critique of the major theories of human rights, synthesizing the main schools of thought on human rights as well as critics of the dominant liberal tradition. The second part discusses the work of Derrida, Levinas, Rorty, and Lyotard, suggesting that none of them has yet produced a workable theory of rights. In the final part, the author develops a constructive notion of ethical and just legal practice that both appropriates and is critical of the dominant liberal tradition. Elaborating his own practical and eclectic theory of rights, the author uses case studies of gay and lesbian rights and refugee rights to develop a theory derived from current critical theory that helps evaluate its appropriateness for human rights discourse and practice in the twenty-first century.

A discussion of the diverse relationships between law and the artistic image. Topics addressed in the book include the history of the relationship between art and law, the ways in which the visual is made subject to the force of the law, and the relations between law, the image and identity.

Do not be afraid, join us, come back! You’ve had your anti-communist fun, and you are pardoned for it—time to get serious once again!—Slavoj Žižek Responding to Alain Badiou’s ‘communist hypothesis’, the leading political philosophers of the Left convened in London in 2009 to take part in a landmark conference to discuss the perpetual, persistent notion that, in a truly emancipated society, all things should be owned in common. This volume brings together their discussions on the philosophical and political import of the communist idea, highlighting both its continuing significance and the need to reconfigure the concept within a world marked by havoc and crisis.

Does the apparent victory, universality and ubiquity of the idea of rights indicate that such rights have transcended all conflicts of interests and moved beyond the presumption that it is the clash of ideas that drives culture? Or has the rhetorical triumph of rights not been replicated in reality? The contributors to this book answer these questions in the context of an increasing wealth gap between the metropolitan elites and the rest, a chasm in income and chances between the rich and the poor, and walls which divide the comfortable middle classes from the 'underclass'. Why do these inequalities persist in our supposed human rights-abiding societies? In seeking to address the foundations, genealogies, meaning and impact of rights, this book captures some of the energy, breadth, power and paradoxes that make deployment of the language of human rights such an essential but changeable part of so many of our contemporary discourses.