Foucault and Human Rights: Seeking the Renewal of Human Rights Education

This article takes up Foucault's politics of human rights and suggests that it may constitute a point of departure for the renewal of HRE, not only because it rejects the moral superiority of humanismthe grounding for the dominant liberal framework of international human rightsbut also because it makes visible the complexities of human rights as illimitable and as strategic tools for new political struggles. Enriching human rights critiques has important implications for HRE, precisely because these critiques prevent the dominance of unreflexive and unproductive forms of HRE that lead toward a declarationalist, conservative and uncritical approach. It is argued that Foucault's critical affirmation of human rightsthat is, an approach which is neither a full embrace nor a total rejectionprovides a critique that can be disruptive to the conventional HRE approach and creates openings that might renew HRE, both politically and pedagogically.