International Human Rights Law: A Paradigm Embedding Racial Injustice–Is There a Way Out?

In the wake of Black Lives Matter movement protests in Summer 2020, questions were raised both within and outside of academic circles about the treatment of black and nonwhite people more broadly at the hands of state and global infrastructure. This discussion has long-pervaded critical legal circles, with eminent theorists such as Crenshaw identifying the fundamental inequalities faced by non-white people within the legal system. When considered from a global perspective, the international human rights law (hereafter IHRL) paradigm can be seen as no different. With theorists largely identifying its founding document as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (hereafter UDHR), assertions have been made as to the colonialist, neoliberalist foundations of the paradigm. It is logical to identify these features as inherited in later treaties and the broader human rights paradigm springing therefrom. Said hereditary features in the IHRL paradigm function to subordinate the poorest non-white people globally and within nations: whilst simultaneously protecting rights originating from Western, white, and neoliberal actors. The racial injustice within IHRL will be examined from multi-layered perspectives: first, spotlighting the UDHR as the point at which racial injustice was conceived, analysing its authors, conceptual scope, and form. Then, examining the way racial injustice subsequently germinated: through subsequent development of the system of IHRL – across treaties and regional development and enforcement. In turn, this has led to many non-white people and non-Western nations being unconscious of and distant from their human rights: unaware of their scope and unlikely to assert them. I then turn to human rights consciousness as a means to redesign human rights: arguing this can be achieved by combining human rights education with a specific, public acknowledgement of racial injustice inherent in IHRL paradigm by the UN. Moving towards publicly confronting the institutionalised racism within IHRL would encourage, not dissuade, non-white people to re-design IHRL concepts within their communities. I advocate for historical and institutional accountability as well as transparency, to encourage conceptual collaboration to redesign IHRL within the image and active participation of those its current form undermines.