Liberal human rights discourse actually licensed powerful states’ interventions for their corporations

Evidence

The liberal approach to human rights, which sequestered the world economy from political challenge, was supported by many of the world’s most powerful states, and licensed their interventions on behalf of their corporations. The capacity of human rights to protect individuals across borders was always one-sided: ‘No major Euro-American nation would subject itself to Third World institutional scrutiny and critique of its human rights performance.’ — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 287

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how human-rights discourse served economic/neoliberal ends, resonating with Moyn’s ‘Not Enough’ thesis and the critical human-rights-law scholarship on market co-optation. — connects to: Human rights discourse can be mobilised to defend property owners against popular demands — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 4; Forced commerce was rhetorically framed as spreading universal rights — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 134; Neoliberal human rights discourse entailed a duty to spread capitalism globally — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 283 (+7 more)
• SEED: Angle: the asymmetry of human-rights scrutiny — the Global South was held accountable while Euro-American states exempted themselves — as a structural feature of the rights regime, not a remediable bug.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal human rights discourse entailed a duty to spread capitalism globally #corroborates (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 283
• Neoliberals weaponized human rights language to protect private property and market order #corroborates (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 76
• Neoliberals framed human rights as a tool to enforce global standards protecting private capital #corroborates (0.88)
• Anti-colonial rights advocates unwittingly armed later coercive interventions in global capitalism’s interests #corroborates (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 273
• Postwar human-rights lawyers deliberately repurposed rights language away from anti-colonialism toward US power #corroborates (0.82) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 449
• Human-rights rhetoric functions as core neoconservative propaganda, not liberal exclusivity #expands (0.75)
• Human rights law and neoliberal economics converge to regulate conduct by quantifying freedom #expands (0.75)