Hannah Arendt and “the Right to Have Rights”

Abstract

The importance of the issue of human rights has increased greatly in international relations since the end of the Cold War, and refugees have often been at the center of debate, concern, and action. The response to perceived refugee crises is indicative of important elements of these wider debates about human rights and their place in an international system that remains based around the sovereign state. Indeed, in places such as Bosnia and Kosovo the creation of large numbers of refugees through the forced expulsion of populations has proved a catalyst for and focus of diplomatic and military action by coalitions of states. However, while willing to express their condemnation for policies that create refugees, the political debate in many states, including those Western states ostensibly most closely linked to the ideal of human rights, has highlighted contradictions, conflicts, and tensions.