Deliverable 7.6 Overview of States' practice of HRJs including findings in three thematic WPs

The term “Human Rights Justifications” (HRJs) was created for this project (HRJust), to describe occasions when human rights are used by the State as a tool of governance, rather than for the purpose for which they were originally created: as a protection for the individual against the power of the State. HRJs turn the human rights regime itself from being a regime holding the State accountable on behalf of the individual rights-holding subject, to being an instrument of governance on behalf of the State. The emergence and growth of HRJs is possible, in part, due to the unresolved relationship between the multilateral and the multipolar World Orders: whilst HRJs spring from the multilateral human rights regime, the scope for the State to use human rights in this way derives in part from the multipolar World Order.