Author Description

This important new work reflects on the contemporary human condition in a 'posthuman' and 'machinistic' world, almost overwhelmed by security concerns, terror and its politics, and technoscience. Exploring the role of human rights and development in such a world, Baxi contends that any serious analysis of human rights theory and practice must confront two critical realities. Firstly, that the new world economic and military orders, along with the continuing wars of and on 'terror', adversely impact global social and human development policies and programmes. Secondly, that emergent technologies, especially artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, and nano-technologies, generating the discourse of the posthuman, have serious implications for human rights. The book presents a critique of the approaches towards a theory of human rights proposed by Amartya Sen and his emphasis on the ethical, as opposed to the juridical nature of such rights. It proceeds to examine the complexities and contradictions of the ideology of development, and asks why there has been so little progress with regard to the right to development. It explores how in the current world scenario the 'emancipatory potential' of human rights may be carried forward in theoretical work and through activism.