Human Rights, American Exceptionalism, and the Stories We Tell

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights represents a remarkable expansion in the recognition of the fundamental rights of all peoples. Nonetheless, consensus on the implementation of these rights is elusive. Two commonly referenced obstacles to achieving such a consensus are: (1) the United States’ practice of unilaterally exempting itself from international human rights treaties, i.e., American exceptionalism; and (2) resistance from those who see the international human rights movement as a means of imposing Western values on non-Western cultures. Considering these as related issues, both deriving from the Eurocentric nature of contemporary international law, this essay suggests that a truly universal consensus will require a decolonizing of the underlying framework of human rights law

Indefinite Detention, Colonialism, and Settler Prerogative in the United States

The primacy accorded individual civil and political rights is often touted as one of the United States\u27 greatest achievements. However, mass incarcerations of indefinite duration have occurred consistently throughout U.S. history and have primarily targeted people of color. The dominant narrative insists that the United States is a political democracy and portrays each instance of indefinite detention in exceptionalist terms. This essay argues that the historical patterns of indefinite detention are better explained by recognizing the United States as a settler colonial state whose claimed prerogative to expand its territorial reach and contain/control populations over which it exercises jurisdiction inevitably results in the involuntary inclusion and concomitant exclusion of peoples of color. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Social and Legal Studies, https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663918769362, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved

Tales of Color and Colonialism: Racial Realism and Settler Colonial Theory

More than a half-century after the civil rights era, people of color in the United States remain disproportionately impoverished and incarcerated, excluded and vulnerable. Legal remedies rooted in the Constitution\u27s guarantee of equal protection remain elusive. This article argues that the racial realism advocated by the late Professor Derrick Bell compels us to look critically at the purposes served by racial hierarchy. By stepping outside the master narrative\u27s depiction of the United States as a nation of immigrants with opportunity for all, we can recognize it as a settler state, much like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It could not exist without the occupation of Indigenous lands, and those lands could not be rendered profitable without imported labor. Employing settler colonial theory, this article identifies some of the strategies of elimination and/or subordination that have been-and continue to be-used to subjugate Indigenous peoples, Afrodescendants, and migrants of color in order to further settler state goals and maintain a racialized status quo. It suggests that further analysis of these strategies will help us find common ground in the diverse experiences of those deemed Other within the United States, and that exercising our internationally recognized right to self-determination- a primary tool of decolonization-may prove more effective than formal equality in dismantling structural racism