Small places: the home-coming of human rights in the Netherlands

Abstract

Human rights as Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, begin in small places: 'Unless they have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere'. In this inaugural lecture on the sociology of human rights, Barbara Oomen sets out a model for understanding how human rights acquire meaning in such places. Next to the laws involved, like the constitutional dispensation of a given country, it is important to look at legal culture and legal consciousness and the actors involved. She applies this model to come to an understanding of the paradox of human rights in the Netherlands. Whilst human rights play a key role in Dutch foreign policies, they are hardly ever invoked as a frame for analyzing and addressing domestic problems, like polarization, domestic violence or access to health care. This human rights exportism can be understood by not only looking at the legal framework - which is characterized by a marked openness towards human rights - but also at the lack of knowledge of rights, the culture of consensualism, the fear of juridification of disputes and at the many actors involved in policy implementation in the Netherlands. This analysis also leads to a research agenda for understanding processes of 'home-coming' of human rights in a place like the Netherlands, with attention for the role of human rights cities, human rights education and processes of rights resistance.