Paradigms of International Human Rights

Aaron Xavier Fellmeth's Paradigms of International Human Rights Law makes an important contribution to the scholarship on international human rights law (IHRL). In the introduction, Fellmeth begins by noting that previous scholarly literature on IHRL has often focused on the content and enforceability of human rights, but that the broader structure and framing of human rights has been undertheorized. With that in mind, Fellmeth identifies that the first purpose of his book "is to begin a structural critique of some of [the] systemic features of IHRL." The second purpose is "to make some progress in bridging moral theory with legal theory in the human rights field," since human rights law is particularly imbued with normative assumptions about morality. Despite the ambitious nature of Fellmeth's proposed undertaking, he goes to great lengths to underscore that the book's aim is not to develop a comprehensive moral theory of IHRL.