University of Tbingen

Institute for Political Science

Course: Key Concepts in International Relations
Vitor Galvo Fraga
Date: Novenber 04, 2014
Christian Reus-Smit Human rights and the social construction of sovereignty
Review of International Studies / Volume 27 / Issue 04 / October 2001, pp 519 538
1. Core arguments of the article

Main goal: overcome the common sense idea of sovereignty and human rights as two
antagonists international regimes that stand in a zero-sum relation, the stronger one of
them, the weaker the other.

To demonstrate this assumption, the author goes through explaining the communicative
process surrounding the decolonization, especially by refuting the view of Robert
Jackson that Human Rights were a reaction to the spread of ramshackle states in the
decolonization process.

Jacksons argument: decolonization was possible because of a change in the meaning of

sovereignty. Negative sovereignty x positive sovereignty.
o He fails to explain the cause of this change.

Constitutional structures and moral purpose of the state.

Emergence of the human rights regime after World War II

Principle of self-determination and human rights

Human rights and sovereignty bound together within the discourse of legitimate
statehood.

2. Theoretical background and contextualization

Who is Christian Reus-Smit?

Constructivism as a theoretical background

The Moral Purpose of The State and the constitutional structures

Rationalists vs. constructivists in the 2000s

3. The core concept: Human Rights

How is it used in the core-text? Human rights as norms

Summary of major approaches to human rights nature and compliance

o Rational actor model

Realism: human rights as a way of promoting interests

Institutionalism: human rights as a way of facilitate agreement

Liberalism: human rights as universal morality

o Normative models

Managerial model: compliance by the pacta sunt servanda

Legitimacy logic: compliance depends on legitimacy

Ideational logic: compliance depends on the norms internalization

Added value: a change in the focus of the constructivists

4. Final observations: a luhmannian approach

Do norms matter? Normative expectations as complexity reducers

The process of norm stabilization as a re-entry process

Realist critic on the compliance of powerful states: a problem of systemic interference

5. References

BURCHILL, Scott. Theories of international relations. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005

CHILDRESS, Donald Earl. The role of ethics in international law. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2012

DIEZ, Thomas; BODE, Ingvild; DA COSTA, Aleksandra Fernandes. Key Concepts in

International Relations. London: Sage Publications Ldt., 2011.

FINNEMORE, Martha; SIKKINK, Kathryn. International norm dynamics and political

change. In: International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4, International Organization at
Fifty: Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics. Published by: The
MIT Press, (Autumn, 1998), Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2601361

HATHAWAY, Oona A. Do human rights treaties make a difference?. Faculty

scholarship

series,

paper

839,

2002.

Source:

http://digitalcommons.law.

yale.edu/fss_papers/839

REUS-SMIT, Christian. The moral purpose of the state. Princeton: Princeton university
press, 1999

SCHOUTEN, P. Theory Talk #27: Christian Reus-Smit on IR cultures, rethinking IR and bridging the normative-empirical divide. Theory talks, 2009.
Source: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30572320/Theory%20Talks/Talkspdf/Theory%20Talk27_Reus-Smit.pdf