The Silent Sound of Drowning: Human Rights Justifications and Complex Intersectionality

Authors

Maria Grahn-Farley

First Page

1

Abstract

This Article presents a new concept, “Human Rights Justifications,” which captures instances in which states invoke human rights to defend and legitimize their own actions. Human Rights Justifications stand in contrast to cases in which human rights are activated by an individual holding the state accountable for its actions. The difference between when a state and when an individual is the activating subject is that with the former, human rights risk serving the state in legitimizing its actions, instead of serving the individual as a protection from the state. This occurs because, when the state activates human rights, it also decides which right to activate, when to activate it, and against which other rights and interests each right should be balanced. The Article presents four methods of Human Rights Justifications: 1) Directly appealing to a human right. 2) Using the United Nations (UN) Committees human rights doctrine. 3) Using international public law principles. 4) Misrepresenting the ordinary meaning of the treaty text. Recent developments in far-right Swedish politics illustrate the risks and vulnerabilities of international human rights within municipal legal systems, especially when there is no external judicial review and political sentiment targets specific groups, in this case, children with migrant backgrounds.

Recommended Citation

Maria Grahn-Farley, The Silent Sound of Drowning: Human Rights Justifications and Complex Intersectionality, 51 Brook. J. Int'l L. 1 (2025).
Available at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/bjil/vol51/iss1/1