De mänskliga rättigheternas Janusansikte - En kontextualiserande studie av förändringar i relationen mellan statslöshet och mänskliga rättigheter

With over 60 years passed since Hannah Arendt wrote her influential The Origins of Totalitarianism, scholars and commentators on statelessness still refer to its chapter The Perplexities of the Rights of Man as a cornerstone in the relation between statelessness and human rights. After assessing the primary views presented by Arendt and contemporary writers on statelessness, this study uses a method of placing the texts in their legal and political contexts to evaluate changes in the relation of human rights and statelessness between the two contexts. This perspective does not only present a better understanding of Arendt and the currency of her work, but also opens a new way to review the implications of a change, or a lack of change, in the relation between human rights and statelessness. While recognizing a series of flaws in the way that international law handles statelessness, the study concludes that the other side of the human rights Janus-faced relation to statelessness, shows that Arendts criticism of the human rights regimes potential is dated because of its evolution into a role as a progressive legal and political influence on European states