Global law and human rights: Marxist reflections. How can a political account of human rights avoid Eurocentrism?

My recent book The Degradation of the International Legal Order? attempts a political account of human rights, and engages with the work of China Miéville and Susan Marks, as well as the extraordinary opus of Alain Badiou. The book has been well received. Sympathetic reviews by Robert Knox and Upendra Baxi have levelled a number of constructive criticisms, and this paper seeks both to grapple with the issues raised and to take the project forward. What is at stake is the concretisation of a thoroughly materialist, properly communist historicisation of human rights, as a contribution to contemporary struggles. In particular, is this project in any sense necessarily Eurocentric

Russia and Human Rights: Incompatible Opposites?

The Article raises in his article “Russia and human rights: incompatible opposites?” the question, if the currently complicated relations between Russia and the CoE concerning Russia’s obligations under the ECHR are at breaking-point. In regard to this issue he gives a description of the history of law in Russia to prove the pre-existing tradition of argument about human rights

The Russian Federation, protocol no. 14 (and 14 bis), and the battle for the soul of the ECHR

With a focus on the Russian Federation, this article examines the adoption by the Council of Europe of Protocol No.14 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and its long-delayed coming into force. The author starts with the question of the original object and purpose of the Council, and how they have now changed. This leads to an analysis of the nature of the crisis – a crisis of success – now faced by the ECHR system, and the reform process which started, on the 50th anniversary of the ECHR, in 2000. After describing Protocol No.14 itself, and the discussion which has surrounded it, the article turns to the central issue. This is not the question of procedural reform, or even admissibility criteria, but what lies behind – the “soul” of the ECHR system. Should the Strasbourg Court remain a court which renders “individual justice”, albeit only for a handful of applicants and with long delays; or should it make become a court which renders “constitutional justice”? The article focuses on the specific problems faced by Russia in its relations with the Council of Europe; and an analysis of the lengthy refusal by the Russian State Duma to ratify Protocol No. 14. The author concludes with an attempted prognosis

Minorities’ protection in Russia: is there a ‘Communist Legacy’?

Book synopsis: Twenty years after the demise of communist policy, this book evaluates the continuing communist legacies in the current minority protection systems and legislations across a number of states in post-communist Europe. The fall of communism and the process of democratisation across post-communist Europe led to considerable change in minority protection with new systems and national political institutions either developed or copied. In general, the new institutions reflected the practices and experiences of (western) European states and were installed upon advice from European security organisations. Yet many ideas, legislative frameworks, policies and practices remained open to interpretation on the ground. With case studies on a diverse set of post-communist polities including Slovakia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Estonia, Croatia, the Baltic States and Russia, expert contributors consider how the institutional legacies of the communist past impact on policies designed to support minority communities in the new European democracies. Providing unique empirical material and comparative analyses of ethnocultural diversity management during and after communism, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, European politics, political geography, post-communism, ethnic politics, nationalism and national identity

Marx, Lenin and Pashukanis on self-determination: response to Robert Knox

This response to Robert Knox’s very kind and constructive review1 of my 2008 book The Degradation of the International Legal Order?: The Rehabilitation of Law and the Possibility of Politics gives me the opportunity not only to answer some of his criticisms, but also, on the basis of my own reflections since 2008, to fill in some gaps. Indeed, to revise a number of my arguments. First, I restate my attempt at a materialist account of human rights. Next I explain why, for me, the right of peoples to self-determination is absolutely central to a materialist understanding of human rights; and also fill a serious gap in my own account in the book. This leads me not only to a reply to Robert Knox on the question of ‘indeterminacy’ in international law, but also to a disagreement with him on the use or misuse of the language of self-determination. My fourth section returns to our very different evaluations of the significance and meaning of the work of Yevgeny Pashukanis, and what, for me, is Pashukanis’s misunderstanding, for reasons consistent with his general theoretical trajectory, of Marx and Lenin on the Irish question. Finally, I present an outline of a re-evaluation of Marx’s principled position on self-determination

Postcolonial transitions on the southern borders of the former Soviet Union: the return of Eurasianism?

As the Soviet Union dissolved into a new territorial reality, it released the doubly repressed histories of Tsarist and Soviet imperium. In the states to the south of the new Russian Federation, the post-soviet jostled with the postcolonial as nations were reinvented across a vast swathe from the Caucuses through Central Asia. In the process, the old Russian linguistic duality between Russki (the ethnic Russian) and Rossiiskii (the citizen of Russia) founds its echo in Russia itself — which encompasses over 20 million Muslims — and in the newly sovereign states — all with large Russian minorities and even larger Russian-speaking populations. For the Azeris, Uzbeks and Kazaks, the repositioning of nation against a recent past of Russian dominance was significantly more problematic. In Chechnya, formally in the Russian Federation, it has reached a cathartic war. The argument here uses international human rights instruments as a litmus test of this troubled recent history. The controversial concept of Eurasia — now resurgent in Russian politics — may not necessarily mean the reinscription of Russian domination, but seeks to offer an alternative to the Atlantic Empire