Human rights and new horizons? thoughts towards a new juridical ontology

The much-lamented anthropocentrism of human rights is misleading. Human rights anthropocentrism is radically attenuated and reflects persistent patterns of intra- and inter-species injustice and binary subject-object relations inapt for 21st century crises and posthuman complexities. This article explores the possibility of re-imagining the “human” of human rights in the light of anti- and post-Cartesian analyses drawing—in particular—upon Merleau-Ponty and on new materialism. The article also seeks to re-imagine human rights themselves as responsibilized, injustice-sensitive claim-concepts emerging in the ‘midst of’ lively materialities and the uneven global dynamics of 21st century predicaments