History can never remain the same, because
every
era must rethink its past.
Our perspective on our origins changes, and for that reason—not
simply
because
new facts have been found—no account of how the present
emerged
is definitive for long. Since histories of human
rights began to be written,
however, I have often felt that the enterprise faces
an especially challenging
obligation not to lose track of how fast our present
is transforming. Human
rights are some of our highest ideals, and they have become so in an age
when lived history can seem to be accelerating so quickly that written history
cannot match the pace of change.
Historians had never written about the origins and path of human
rights
before the principles
ascended to the status of a moral lingua franca in global
affairs mere decades
ago. Soon after
the search for their background began,
no earlier than the 1990s, scholars began to dispute how to conduct their
inquiries: the uplifting liberal internationalism of the initial post–Cold
War
moment suddenly looked very different
after
the Iraq War and the disturbing
chaos it unleashed. Having first been tasked with celebrating how the invention
of human
rights marked the beginning of the end of history, scholarship
now became a forum in which to debate the propriety of liberal interventionism
abroad, the progressive credentials of nongovernmental
advocacy, and the outstanding visibility given to the spectacle of mass atrocity.