Universal human rights are administered through sovereign states that decide individuals’ fates

Evidence

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins by asserting “the inherent dignity” and “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family,” and then turns immediately to the state. In doing so it implicitly accepts the fact that the universal character of the rights-bearing person is made the responsibility of sovereign states, each of which has exclusive jurisdiction over a limited group within the human family. This limited population is—as Foucault noted—at once the object of the state’s care and a means of securing its own power. In other words, although the individual does not have the right to decide his own fate, authorities of the state of which he is a citizen have the constitutional right to decide it for him. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 664

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the paradox of liberal rights being guaranteed by the very sovereign power they protect against — echoes Foucault’s pastoral power and the state as both caregiver and controller. — connects to: Human rights associations prompt high-capacity monarchies to grant controlled political amnesties. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 391