ABSTRACT
In recent years, the institutionalization and internationalization of human rights law has significantly affected the manner in which a range of criminal justice policies are critiqued. Common cause between criminologists and lawyers is now much more apparent, with shared agendas of activism, litigation and scholarship – all motivated by the liberalizing potential of human rights. The present-day criminological engagement with human rights aims to loosen the hold of legalism. It targets the tendency of lawyers and their elite professional practices to both colonize human rights and trumpet their allegedly limitless capacity. This criminological engagement does not turn away from human rights as a global currency, with empowering potential and possible real-life benefits, but equally it insists on the limits of both law and human rights. Human rights are also proving to be a significant catalyst for reflections on criminology’s contemporary identity and choices about future research pathways.
