Human Rights and the Empire of (International) Law

The twenty year period from 1989-2009 witnessed a significant increase in the use of international law for the promotion and enforcement of international law. What was once a contested and political discourse has become the lingua franca of international relations. While it is tempting to argue that the emergence of human rights as a dominant force in international law was made possible by the triumph of liberalism internationally since 1989, this alone was not enough to create the conditions for the established legalism today.This article will argue that a fundamental shift occurred in international law during the 1980s. This shift was crucial to the development of human rights law but is largely overlooked in the literature that assesses the move from standard setting to enforcement post 1989.