Human rights and the nation state in the Global South: A genealogical and decolonial critique

Human rights treaties rely on nation states to ratify them, thereby positioning the state as the “giver” of rights. This presents problems for realizing human rights in the Global South, given that the nation, as an organizing construct, was imported from Europe through colonialism and then cemented through local westernized nationalists that inherited the colonial state. Through a decolonial, genealogical analysis that centers the African experience in colonialism and nation building, this paper shows how human rights serves to camouflage the violence of the nation state. It argues that delinking human rights from the nation state is an important step toward reimagining human rights in a way that is usable by the marginalized.