The Human Rights Discourse and the Question of Power: Application of Critical Discourse Analysis to the Study of the Human Rights Language
The Human Rights Discourse and the Question of Power: Application of Critical Discourse Analysis to the Study of the Human Rights Language

Summary/Abstract: The idea of possible applicability of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to the study of the human rights language draws on the inseparable character of relationships between language, power and politics. In international politics of last decades human rights have become a globally accessible moral and legal language applied to express universal claims and to measure development. It has been used to legitimise political actions such as external interventions for regime change as well as to counteract cultural practices if they violate the rights of individual persons or reflect gender inequalities. This rhetoric has also served to establish a powerful perspective relating to the present and past collective experiences of injustice, violence or exclusion.

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