What's Wrong with Human Rights, Pt. 2

Summary

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Podcast Summary: It Could Happen Here

Episode: What's Wrong with Human Rights, Pt. 2

Hosts: Mick & James
Date: July 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode continues a critical exploration of the concept and reality of human rights, questioning what "human rights" really mean when their recognition depends on the state’s willingness to enforce them. Hosts Mick and James discuss the philosophical critiques of rights, using contemporary and historical examples to unravel how easily people can be stripped of their protections—often through technical, political, or linguistic shifts in state policy. They focus especially on Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the homo sacer and the “state of exception,” and finish by considering whether hope can be found through personal and community obligations, rather than state guarantees.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Giorgio Agamben and the Concept of Homo Sacer

• Introduction to Agamben (00:40):

  • Mick introduces the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, whose work became notably influential during the COVID pandemic.
  • Agamben builds on Hannah Arendt and Carl Schmitt, but pushes the analysis further.

• Homo Sacer Defined (01:30):

  • Quote: “Homo sacer is … a person who is banned from society, might be killed by anybody, but must not be sacrificed in a religious ritual.” —Mick (01:40)
  • This represents someone stripped of both social and religious status—a "bare" biological life subject to the sovereign's will.
  • The state can exclude you from the political community while still subjecting you to its power.

2. The State of Exception & Examples

• State of Exception (03:11):

  • In emergencies, states may suspend laws to expand power (e.g., martial law).
  • Legal gray areas emerge—rights dissolve as the sovereign takes broader control.
  • Quote: “Many a dictator has invoked martial law just so they could, like, crush down on everything.” —Mick (03:32)

• Contemporary Cases (03:56–06:09):

  • Rights are fluid and often dependent on physical location or status (e.g., US border zones, differences between citizens and migrants, refugees in camps).
  • Quote: “A Palestinian and Israeli person could be holding hands … and from the moment they entered to the moment they left, they would have completely divergent experiences.” —James (06:09)
  • The COVID-19 pandemic is cited as a time when even constitutional guarantees were negotiable.

3. Distinctions Between Biological and Political Humanity

• Conditional Rights (06:53–09:02):

  • Rights require political recognition and the power to enforce them.
  • Quote: “Rights are conditional and require power to uphold them for you as a subject.” —Mick (06:53)
  • Biological existence alone does not bestow rights—without state recognition, people are “homo sacer.”

• Examples of State-Driven Categorization:

  • Prison labor and transgender healthcare highlight how states grant or revoke rights based on artificial categorizations.
  • Quote: “Even if you are part of a political community, [the state] can negate the rights … by categorizing you differently.” —Mick (08:36)

4. Guantanamo Bay: Enemy Combatants and Legal Switcheroos

• Geneva Convention Loopholes (09:02–11:56):

  • The Bush administration re-classified detainees as “enemy combatants,” stripping them of POW rights under international law.
  • Quote: “Power simply switches around the political community that applies to you, and suddenly they can do whatever they want to you because you’re just the biological unit. It’s a linguistic switcheroo.” —Mick (11:09)
  • Rights are not absolute; the state redefines status to suit its purposes.

• Psychological Cost (12:09–13:11):

  • Even those serving non-combat roles at Guantanamo experienced psychological stress from participating in the environment.
  • Quote: “Participating in something that you know to be wrong isn’t good for you.” —James (12:48)

5. The Right to Have Rights & The Role of Obligation

• Human Rights as a "Premium Option" (13:11–14:21):

  • Human rights are described as a “premium package” available only at the state’s discretion.
  • Quote: “It’s actually just the premium option, but you can’t buy it. There is a power that has to say, ‘oh no, this person has the premium package and you get to have human rights.’” —Mick (13:15)

• Outsourcing Obligation to the State (15:16–16:07):

  • Many people assume rights are protected by the state, but states can and do selectively violate them.
  • Quote: “People have become very comfortable outsourcing their obligation to the state without realizing that. Therefore they no longer get to decide who gets rights.” —James (15:57)

• Bait and Switch in Protest Rights (16:07–16:56):

  • Laws ostensibly preserve rights, but are circumvented via shifting justifications (e.g., dissolving protests on technicalities).
  • Quote: “It is, again, this bait and switch that keeps happening.” —Mick (16:53)

6. Responsibility, Hope, and Building Alternatives

• Community Action Stories (17:24–22:46):
  • Examples of direct, personal obligation and mutual aid, contrasting starkly with the state’s failures, including protecting the Yazidis and providing sanctuary for those in need.
  • Quote: “Those people acted as guarantors of someone else’s rights by fulfilling their obligation.” —James (18:31)
  • Mick narrates letting an at-risk stranger stay in his home, underscoring how individuals and communities can protect human dignity.
  • Quote: “The world I want to live in is one where someone can feel safe in situations like that.” —Mick (21:11)
  • Anarchist perspectives are reframed as being about care and everyday mutual support, not chaos.
  • Quote: “Most of the time when you’re doing anarchism, you’re making someone food or giving someone a blanket, like, very nice, pleasant things to be doing.” —James (22:08)
  • Quote: “Put someone on your couch who is in dire need of a safe place.” —Mick (22:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The State as Rights Gatekeeper:

  • “It’s so weird to have something that we are taught is unalienable. It’s actually just the premium option, but you can’t buy it.” —Mick (13:15)

• On Personal Obligation:

  • “If the world you want to live in is one where that person can feel safe, … we only do that by building it ourselves.” —James (21:55)

• On Anarchism in Practice:

  • “Most of the time when you’re doing anarchism, you’re making someone food or giving someone a blanket, like, very nice, pleasant things to be doing.” —James (22:08)

• Uplifting Call to Action:

  • “Put someone on your couch who is in dire need of a safe place. … But be also safe yourself.” —Mick (22:37)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:40 – Introduction to Agamben and “homo sacer”
• 03:11 – The “state of exception” and martial law
• 06:09 – Juxtaposition of rights in shared spaces (Palestinians/Israelis)
• 09:02 – Guantanamo Bay and enemy combatant classification
• 13:15 – Human rights as a 'premium option'
• 15:57 – Outsourcing obligation to the state
• 18:31 – Example: The Yazidis and fulfilling communal obligation
• 21:11 – Personal story of providing sanctuary
• 22:08 – Practical anarchism: mutual aid in action

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Conclusion

This episode interrogates the extent and reality of human rights, ultimately suggesting that state recognition is fickle and unreliable. Instead, the hosts argue that real protection comes from communities and shared obligations, not the abstract promises of states. Despite the bleakness of the systemic critique, the conversation ends on a hopeful note: individual and collective action—no matter how small—can build a more caring and just world.

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Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

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[Cool Zone Media Host]

Cool Zone Media.

[Mick]

Hey everyone. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I am still Mick and I'm still with James. If for some reason you haven't listened to the first parts, I would strongly urge you to do that first because we're going to dive straight in here and I afraid you're going to miss a lot of context and a lot of explanation as to what's going on. So yes, our next shin kicking badass is Giorgio Agamben. I mentioned him before. Some of you may have heard from him because around the COVID pandemic, his work became incredibly popular all of a sudden. He follows a similar philosophical path that Dathana Arendt already laid out, but he goes like a few steps further. I'm sorry to say that we have once again some concepts to explore before we get to go deeper. Agamben strongly uses the concept of homo sacer. It's a Latin term used during some time in the Roman Republic. It means sacred man or a cursed man. It is a person who is banned from society, might be killed by anybody, but must not be sacrificed in a religious ritual. So Akamben sees this as someone who is exiled from society and also not recognized as someone fit or worthy of being used in religious rituals. Like in fact, the Roman state has declared that this person is just a biological life form. Okay, that's in essence what this boils down to. It upholds like the sovereign power over this person because it is like the Roman state that could enforce this or retract it, but for all intents and purposes, like the homo sacer is like stripped of humanity from political community, essentially rightless. Yeah, and this is also like a really weird position because you're still sort of subject to the state, which without the state wanting anything to do with you, almost like a very one directional relationship. And Akambahn in turn adapts this concept of the homo sacer into his state of exception. In his work of the same name, he lays out how in times of emergency, usually this is what like the German philosopher Carl Schmitt often referred to. But Agamben is taking it in a. In a much cooler direction than Carl Schmitt ever did.

[James]

Okay.

[Mick]

In times of emergency, where on a political level the decision is made to increase the legal power of the sovereign system, this increase can be an addition of new laws or the annulment of others. The question of how legal this is, this increase in power is often a very, very gray area. Like martial law is a good example. Like there is a real, perceived or imaginary threat to the country or society and. And thus whoever is in power invokes martial law and suddenly all bets are off because they can't be restricted by law in order to deal with that situation. Like many a dictator has, like, invoked martial law just so they could, like, crush down on everything.

[James]

Yeah. There are so many places where I could think of where there's been like a state of exception or a state of emergency for decades. Right. I mean, to an extent, since the United States passed the Patriot act or like, you know, in the United States, we famously have the first 10amendments because the Constitution, which are referred to as a Bill of Rights. Right. Which enshrined many of the things that state isn't supposed to do to us. Unless you happen to be in the border enforcement zone or subject to some of these, like, sneak and peek warrants that the Patriot act allows. Right. Or other. Other pieces of legislation as well. Right. Like, yeah. There are many, many, many examples of this. Yeah.

[Mick]

Where Hannah Arendt has like, very distinct, like the Zoe and the Bios and Arganbench sort of sees like an in between area where. Yeah. You become this homo sacer, where, like, you're not really the one, you're not really the other. And in that gray area, just anything can happen.

[James]

Yeah. I think that, like, humans without rights concept is useful.

[Mick]

Yeah. And that they become so fluid in a bad way. Like, if I were to arrive at like, lax, if I make the wrong joke while I'm in the gray zone, then probably every one of my orifices will be searched for, like, drugs or other things. But once I step out of lax, then like, the LAPD can't do that to me.

[James]

Right.

[Mick]

Without a whole different bureaucratic legal animal that they'll have to deal with.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But like, physically, I just took three steps. Yeah.

[James]

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Or like, if you think of the rights that migrants and refugees have.

[Cool Zone Media Host]

Right.

[James]

Like, they can be in the same space as someone but have completely different rights. Think about how the Rohingya people are in the Camps in Bangladesh, for example. Like, a Bangladeshi person could come there, but they would have very different experiences of the state and their rights, especially if they tried to walk out of there.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[James]

Together.

[Mick]

Or like, Palestinians living in certain areas. And the Palestinians will need to be able to identify themselves at each checkpoint where they have to wait two hours. And an Israeli person will just walk through it and wave to the guards. They're the exception, so they can be treated differently.

[James]

Yeah, yeah. Like, you literally have roads that they can't go on. Right. Like, but yeah, a Palestinian and Israeli person is a good example. Right. They could be holding hands, walking together, and enter a checkpoint, and from the moment they entered to the moment they left, they would have completely divergent experiences.

[Mick]

Exactly. And a whole different set of, like, legal rights and legal protections.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Another example that I wrote down here was, like, the pandemics and the lockdowns, because I know at least in the Netherlands, when we had lockdowns, it was very unclear as to if it was constitutionally even allowed to do that and if the crisis was severe enough to justify the. Those measures on a legal level.

[James]

Right, yeah. That's also a discussion here.

[Mick]

Yes. Well, I'm not an expert on the US So I can only use my own example here at this point. This is where all the critiques sort of start to blend together, and this is where I hope, like, it's going to make the most sense. As Simon Fail already said, like, rights are conditional and require power to uphold them for you as a subject. What we run into now is this distinction between being human as a biological unit or as a political one, because the latter has access to rights, the former doesn't, and as a consequence, that person becomes this homo sacer, in a sense, outside of society. And the protections that that offers, you get all the downsides of being a subject, but none of the benefits, like the social contract sort of becomes revoked.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

The tricky part is that power can also treat you differently based on, like, biological categories or political categories. Like, prison labor is a very good example of this.

[James]

Yep.

[Mick]

Under the 13th Amendment, slave labor was made illegal except as a punishment. So as soon as power can give you a punishment, some of your rights just dissipate.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Like, another. Another one is healthcare. Like, if you're a CIS woman experiencing, like, menopausal issues, it's relatively easy to get, like, hormone treatments. But if you're a trans woman, it suddenly becomes incredibly difficult or downright illegal to get those very same hormones. And that's also, like this categorization. In order to treat someone differently. So what I think I'm trying to say is that our can also navigate in such a way that even if you are part of a political community, it can negate the rights and the human rights that should come with it by categorizing you differently. This is Agamben's massive critique, because rather than you getting human rights and getting them respected by power, it makes you dependent on power to recognize and honor it.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

In a way, human rights become a liability instead of a protection, because power, the sovereign, the state, can still decide whether or not to recognize you as, like, biological or political. So one of the most tangible and powerful examples of this not being recognized comes from our good friend James President Gregory Wookie Bush and his seaside resort in Guantanamo Bay. I think I had that correct. Under international law, you're still entitled to have certain human rights when you are detained as a prisoner of war. I'll be citing a little bit from the third Geneva Convention in which this was ratified. The status of POWs only applies in international armed conflict. POWs are usually members of armed forces or of one of the parties to a conflict who fall into the hands of the opposing party. The third Geneva Convention also classifies other categories of people who have the right to POW status or may be treated as such. POWs must be treated humanely in all circumstances. They are protected against any act of violence, as well as against intimidation, insults, and public curiosity. International humanitarian law also defines the minimum acceptable conditions of detention, covering such issues as accommodation, food, clothing, hygiene, and medical care. So you know where this is going. Yeah, because Greg Water Walker Bush circumvented this all by proclaiming that people, certain people, were not prisoners of war, but rather enemy combatants, and as such, not subject to the protections of the Geneva Convention. It's a bait and switch that is as smart as it is, like, diabolical, because power simply switches around the political community. That applies to you, and suddenly they can do whatever they want to you because you're just the biological unit. It's a linguistic switcheroo.

[James]

Yeah. And it shows how our rights are perceived in US Law to come from the state as a guarantor of them. Right. Like, because these people were, quote, unquote, terrorists, and they weren't fighting on behalf of a state. Therefore, obligations to them and to the state that we're at war with don't exist.

[Mick]

Yeah.

[James]

And. And like, so they, therefore they don't have rights because there is not a state to say, hey, you're violating them, even though Many, many Americans, including in many, many court cases, said, hey, you're violating their rights. And even when they were citizens of other countries, British people were in Guantanamo Bay.

[Mick]

Yeah. From. From all over the world.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

Also, I think there never has been a single conviction because of whatever the fuck happened in Guantanamo Bay.

[James]

Yeah. They have their own special court. I don't know if they've convicted people there, but they definitely have a court there.

[Cool Zone Media Host]

Yeah.

[James]

Yeah. I didn't know about the convictions, but I remember teaching a sociology course and getting into Guantanamo Bay quite a lot. But that was some time ago. I've had students who were. Who served at Guantanamo Bay and I think it's fair to say that, like, that the psychological damage that does to everybody involved should not be underestimated. Like, it goes back to your idea of like, we have an inherent gut feeling of right and wrong and participating in something that you know to be wrong isn't good for you. It's not. It's not the same as being tortured and waterboarded. But knowing that you are in a place to be clear. I don't know anyone who has participated in any of that, like, enhanced interrogation bullshit. But just being a fucking cook in a place where that happens is still damaging, I'm sure, to you and your sense of being a person who believes in their obligation to others.

[Mick]

Yeah. I would not trust anyone who wouldn't be affected by that.

[James]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Mick]

That person who is not affected by that is either a psychopath or dead insight. I'm not going to be nuanced about that. But this is the core of the entire critique against human rights. Because it is simply the state decides that you're not part of a political community or just cuts you off from it. And suddenly we can play like Hotel California 247 and drive you insane, or lack of sleep, too hot or too cold. It's so weird to have something that we are taught is unalienable. It's actually just the premium option, but you can't buy it. There is a power that has to say, oh, no, this person has the premium package and you get to have human rights. It is this right to have rights, as Arend said, that makes it really weird because you're still dependent and unless recognized, you're still just an animal existing out there. It's. Yeah, so. And this is why I thought it would be a good idea to have this discussion, because I think we can look at pretty much any continent at the moment and see things that are like, oh, you can see this pattern Everywhere.

[James]

Yeah, it's very relevant to the United States right now. Right, because like we got, you know, like the Department of Homeland Security going out there and doing stuff which is violative of people's rights, both in US and international law terms. And there's been a response, right, by certain groups of people. And I understand, right, if you have spent your whole life seeing rights as guaranteed by the state and the state is a benevolent actor, then it's hard to make that mind switch. I do understand that. But it actually doesn't matter. And this is very hard for some people to grasp, judging by my replies on BSky app. Yeah, that's actually illegal. It doesn't matter, right. People just being like, oh, they can't do that while they're doing. Doesn't matter that they're violating like half the Bill of Rights in a two minute period. They're still doing it. There is no accountability because the state doesn't hold itself accountable. So like, when we need to think of a framework where like our, our assumptions can line up with reality, you

[Mick]

come back to obligations because look, what, what do you think is right and wrong to happen to people?

[James]

Yeah, we'd meet that a lot with outdoor detention, actually. Like when we were feeding people, like, you'd be like, hey, just trying to get help from folks, you know, like trying to be like, hey, you know, I'm trying to feed these folks and help us out, give us whatever. Like people will be asking friends in their community. And then folks would be like, well, they can't do that. They have the right to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you'd be like, cool, do you want to come tell them? Like, we'll see how it goes, I guess. But like they are doing it and we have an obligation to take care of them. And like, I think people have become very comfortable outsourcing their obligation to the state without realizing that. Therefore they no longer get to decide who gets rights. And when, when you do that.

[Mick]

Yeah, I think it's important to highlight like this little switcheroo. If you think of like the Palestine protests, they can't outright ban protests because then you're very much violating the Constitution.

[James]

Right?

[Mick]

Yeah, but if you say like, oh no, but this is not because they're protesting. This is because it's anti Semitic and we need to protect these other. The acts that are happening on the ground have not really changed. But the way you can approach this from a legal and a political level become a whole different ballgame. And I think that that doesn't pertain to human rights as much as. Like the example you mentioned. But it is, again, this bait and switch that keeps happening. And I'm sure everyone listening can think of times or examples of that. And it is not great.

[James]

Yeah, it's not great.

[Mick]

Yeah. That is all I have. Unfortunately, I don't have any advice or anything how to deal with this. For you as the listener, it doesn't help to tell if a cop. They're violating your human rights. They won't listen.

[James]

Yeah. I think it could be easy for people to assume that this is a hopeless thing. Right. Because the rights only matter when the state decides they matter. Therefore, they don't matter. But it can also be a hopeful thing because maybe if we look at the example I wrote about this in my book of the Yazidis when they were in Shanghai and they were on their mountain and the Islamic State, I think it was ISIS at that time, not sure if it had declared itself the Islamic State, yet was surrounding them and very much coming to violate every single concept of rights and decency that one can imagine for a human being. Right. And I remember interviewing a. Yep. Commander about this in Rojava and him saying, obviously I'm translating here. It's an indirect quotation, but we were very disappointed in the states of the world at that moment. And so we decided to go ourselves. And like, it was a very small number. Right. Like, different accounts have had different numbers of. I think entirely Kurdish. We can. We can debate if Azidi people are Kurdish or not, but, like, it's not the place for that, is it?

[Mick]

No.

[James]

People from the YPG who went to the mountain and eventually built corridor with their blood, with their bodies. Right. To allow those people to come to Rojava. Now, unfortunately, those people. This is a very good example now, I think about it, actually. Right. So those people acted as guarantors of someone else's rights by fulfilling their obligation. Now, if we look at where the Yazidi people are, in some part, not every single Yazidi person, but many Yazidi people are still in refugee camps in Iraq. Right. The conditions that they are in. We hear a lot about how bad conditions are for the people in the Islamic State prisons or were. We do not hear as much about how bad conditions are for the Yazidi people. But they are bad. Right. They have a right to a much better life. The states of the world are not fulfilling that right. They are not fulfilling their obligation to these people who did nothing other than live the way they've lived for thousands of Years. And because that way was considered to be heretical by the Islamic State, they were targeted for genocide. Right. And would have been killed in much greater numbers were it not for those people who were willing to fulfill their obligation to go and defend them. And then the states of the world have let them down again. And so, you know, try to. Try to find a future for themselves. So, like, it's.

[Mick]

We're very good at that.

[James]

Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing that we do.

[Mick]

I may have a hopeful example.

[James]

Nice.

[Mick]

I told you, James, that I had a random person living in my house.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

And, well, for you, the listeners, like, through the community, it became known to us that there was someone who had fled an unsafe home situation. Legal, adult, but I'm not entirely sure how much it should say, but it sounded very serious, and we took it very seriously. And I had a spare room at that time. I did not know this person. I only have a first name. I never learned a second name or anything. Never asked for an idiot. I thought to myself, the world I want to live in is one where someone can feel safe in situations like that. So despite me being a pretty introverted person, I was like, okay, come live here, because you need some place to get back on your feet. You need somewhere to be safe. And that is a way in which you can uphold your obligations to other people also, with the safety, security, without persistent fear, a roof over their heads, even just a place to cool down a bit and figure things out. And it would wreck my own political convictions to be able to help in such a situation and not do it, because I find it a little uncomfortable to have a stranger living in my house. Also, for the record, nothing was stolen. Nothing weird or bad happened. This person just lived here for a week and moved on. Yeah, but that is a way in which you could also, in any small way, fulfill your obligation to other people and to live in accordance with your own convictions and your own moral and ideological compass.

[James]

Yeah. I think that's a great example of how you can act according to your obligation. Right. And we can all do that in different ways, different senses. And there's one thing. I liked what you said a lot, that if the world you want to live in is one where that person can feel safe, and we only do that by building it ourselves. My perception of politics is that we are wasting our time asking the state to build that world for us. And instead we can build it piece by piece along the way. And I know people perceive anarchism to be chaotic and violent, but most of the time when you're doing anarchism, you're making someone food or giving someone a blanket, like, very nice, pleasant things to be doing. It makes me feel better that we can make a world where that happens through our individual actions.

[Mick]

Yeah. Very nice David Graeber metaphor there for digging a well. Like Mia likes to say, put a trans girl on your couch. That's also protecting human rights.

[James]

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Mick]

I'm sorry. I just thought of it. But yeah, put someone on your couch who is in dire need of a safe place.

[James]

Yeah.

[Mick]

But be also safe yourself.

[James]

Clearly.

[Mick]

I think that's all we have, James. This was depressing and then uplifting enough.

[James]

Yeah. That's what we do here.

[Mick]

Okay. Yeah. Well, take care, everyone. And until next time,

[Cool Zone Media Host]

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