Disruption and Emergence: How to Think about Human Rights Futures

This article suggests that humanity may be approaching a critical juncture, since a confluence of macrohistorical changes might—individually or collectively—fundamentally transform the field of human rights, and usher in a second human rights era. In particular, it suggests the confluence of tectonic geopolitical changes, system-wide shifts in climate and energy, and fundamentally new developments in science and technology might lead to a rupture of the same scale as the cluster of events that heralded the onset of the current rights regime. This argument builds on a number of literatures, especially those focused on norms cycles, rights generations, and what is being called the “ontological turn.” Yet the implications extend beyond these conversations in terms of both conceptual scale (the emphasis here is on critical junctures between eras, rather than cycles or generations within eras) as well as temporal scale (the emphasis is on the medium-to-long-range future, rather than the near future). An effort to ground this speculation takes the form of testable hypotheses and practical recommendations.