What's Wrong with Rights?

Social movements demand rights to remedy wrongs and injustices. But why do organisations like the World Bank and IMF, the G7 states and the World Economics Forum want to promote rights? Mapping the rights discourse and the transformations in transnational finance capitalism since the world wars, the interrogating the connections between the two, Radha D'Souza examines contemporary rights in theory and practice. Looking at the struggles of people worldwide and their aspirations for emancipation and freedom, the book examines what is entailed in reducing rights to 'human' rights. It also explores why the argument 'our understandings of rights are better than theirs' is popular within social movements and in critical scholarship--back cover.