I am skeptical of our ability to predict, or even forecast, the future—of human rights or any other important social practice. Nonetheless, an understanding of the paths that have brought us to where we are today can facilitate thinking about the future. Thus, I approach the topic by examining the reshaping of international ideas and practices of state sovereignty and human rights since the end of World War II. I argue that in the initial decades after the war, international society (...) constructed an absolutist conception of exclusive territorial jurisdiction that was fundamentally antagonistic to international human rights. At the same time, though, human rights were for the first time included among the fundamental norms of international society. And over the past two decades, dominant understandings of sovereignty have become less absolutist and more human rights–friendly, a trend that I suggest is likely to continue to develop, modestly, in the coming years. (shrink)

First published in 1985. In this study, Donnelly distinguishes between "having a right" and "being right" and elaborates the distinction with great subtlety to show that rights have to be understood as action and not as a possession. This is done with such clarity and good sense that he is able to cast light on all aspects of the often confusing discussions of the natures and usages of "right". He illuminates an astonishing range of issues, from the limitations of Thomist (...) and utilitarian conceptions of right to the confusions of many present-day defenders of rights, both in the West and the Third World. As importantly, Donnelly is centrally concerned with the human aspect of "human rights". He is thus able to rest his discussion of rights on a plausible philosophical anthropology as well as an appreciation of an historical dimension to human rights, and, at the end of his book, is able to open the door towards potential new developments in the discussion of human rights. Down the path he points us lies a reconciliation of the notion of individual rights with that of political community. This title will be of great interest to students of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

I am skeptical of our ability to predict, or even forecast, the future—of human rights or any other important social practice. Nonetheless, an understanding of the paths that have brought us to where we are today can facilitate thinking about the future. Thus, I approach the topic by examining the reshaping of international ideas and practices of state sovereignty and human rights since the end of World War II. I argue that in the initial decades after the war, international society (...) constructed an absolutist conception of exclusive territorial jurisdiction that was fundamentally antagonistic to international human rights. At the same time, though, human rights were for the first time included among the fundamental norms of international society. And over the past two decades, dominant understandings of sovereignty have become less absolutist and more human rights–friendly, a trend that I suggest is likely to continue to develop, modestly, in the coming years. (shrink)

Donnelly asserts that Ames has misrepresented his arguments, creating a straw man from Ames's own preconceived notion of the Western liberal tradition while ignoring the substantive debates.

Donnelly's essay reconstructs the scholarly discourse on human rights that began with the initial mid-1970s "innovative and controversial" approach of linking human rights to foreign policy.

Recent work on complex adaptive systems in the natural sciences, and the growing relational turn in the social sciences both reject the "systems theories" of earlier generations. This book builds on these entities to advance a relational processual approach to the comparative study of historical and contemporary international systems.