Human Rights and the Body: Hidden in Plain Sight

by Annabelle Mooney

Overview

Human Rights and the Body is a response to the crisis in human rights, to the very real concern that without a secure foundation for the concept of human rights, their very existence is threatened. While there has been consideration of the discourses of human rights and the way in which the body is written upon, research in linguistics has not yet been fully brought to bear on either human rights or the body. Drawing on legal concepts and aspects of the law of human rights, Mooney aims to provide a universally defensible set of human rights and a foundation, or rather a frame, for them. She argues that the proper frames for human rights are firstly the human body, seen as an index reliant on the natural world, secondly the globe and finally, language. These three frames generate rights to food, water, sleep and shelter, environmental protection and a right against dehumanization. This book is essential reading for researchers and graduate students in the fields of human rights and semiotics of law.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367600389
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/30/2020
Series:	Law, Language and Communication
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Annabelle Mooney is Reader in Sociolinguistics at the University of Roehampton, UK.

Table of Contents

List of Tables ix

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction: We Were Promised Jet Packs 1

1 Universal and Foundations 7

Universality of Human Rights 10

Culture and Human Rights 13

(Anti) Foundations 18

The Current System 25

The Origin of Human Rights 30

Humane Models 33

The Human 38

Conclusion 41

2 The Blinded Body 43

Bodies of Data 45

The Fields 46

Breaching, Balancing and the Monster 51

Particular Human Rights 59

The Singular Human Right 60

Frames 64

Conclusion 66

3 The Body 67

Real Bodies 69

The Absent Body 74

Searching for the Soul of the Body 78

Conclusion 83

4 The Body, the Index and the Other 87

The Body and the World 88

Before the Zero Institution 90

This is My Body 92

The Body as Index 95

Is and Ought 99

Bodies in the World: Climate Theory 102

Homo Sacer 105

The Other 108

5 The Living Body 115

Water as a Human Right 117

Plachimada: People and Property 119

Thirsty Corporations 124

Money and Sense 125

The Public Trust 130

Roman Law 133

Anticipatory Negligence 135

Trust and the Political Order 137

A Coda 139

6 The Embodied Mind 141

The Body and the Mind 143

Metaphor 145

Thought, Feeling and Space 147

What is Universal? 151

Bad Biology 155

Step Outside 158

7 The Linguistic Body 163

Natural Semantic Metalanguage 164

NSM and Human Rights 172

Dehumanisation 177

What Makes Us Inhuman? 180

Root Causes 192

Conclusion 194

Conclusion: Three Rights and Three Frames 197

References 201

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

’Bare, embodied life, traditionally conceived of as pre-political and pre-legal, emerges in Annabelle Mooney’s sensitive account as the very origin and index of being human, and hence as the only proper foundation for a truly universal set of basic human rights. The thinking enacted in this brilliant book will be a welcome contribution to the debate about universalism versus cultural relativism in the theory of human rights.’ Louis E. Wolcher, University of Washington, Seattle, USA ’Annabelle Mooney’s book is a landmark in the literature on human rights and our common humanity. Importantly, the main stress here is not so much on rights as on human. The two main reference points are the vulnerable human body and universal human concepts. This is novel and revealing. Highly recommended.’ Anna Wierzbicka, Australian National University, Australia ’By moving away from strictly defined aspects to what Dr Mooney refers to as Bare Human Rights, she helps us to look deeper into the human condition from a perspective of disenfranchisement and de-humanizing the other. Human Rights and the Body is at once thought-provoking and holistic in its approach to human rights. As corporate and political globalization marginalizes more and more of our world’s population, this is a timely text which should be read by those in the fields of world politics, law and business.’ Jack B. Hamlin, National University, USA ’What a bold and inspiring book, refreshingly disrespectful of the traditional boundaries between disciplines. Straddling philosophy, law and linguistics, the book invites us to reflect not only on human rights and the body, but effectively on the human condition itself.’ Gerlinde Mautner, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

From the Publisher