Book Review: The Informational Logic of Human Rights: Network Imaginaries in the Cybernetic Age
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09646639231187062 |
| Author | MICKEY KELLER |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
but also requires that we change norms within the trial proceedings. Campbell takes great
care to provide a gender analysis of each angle of a trial proceeding, and the discussion of
feminist fact-finding is particularly striking. While the “white, Western, and male global
elites”have traditionally made up the international legal profession and installed their
preferred norms for fact-finding, the author’s proposal requires that we transform the
courtrooms as well as the laws they enforce (pp. 324–325).
In short, Campbell’s book is an essential contribution to larger conversations about
whether the global underpinnings of international law generally, and international crim-
inal law specifically, can be overcome to make the institutions serve the needs of more
global communities. This author’s feminist model of justice for gender-based violence
is hopeful that they can.
SHANNON FYFE
George Mason University, USA
ORCID iD
Shannon Fyfehttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-0958-9048
JOSH BOWSHER, The Informational Logic of Human Rights: Network Imaginaries in the Cybernetic
Age. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 216, ISBN 9781399509909, £85 (hbk) (ebk).
This book makes a novel and generative contribution to the debate concerning the nature
of the relationship between neoliberalism and human rights (Marks, 2013; Moyn, 2015;
Whyte, 2019). Those familiar with the debate will recognise a number of the conventions
of the critical literature: the periodisation (the book eschews longer histories of rights in
favour of the moment of their political breakthrough in the 1970s); cast (dissidents,
NGOs, the Carter administration, etc.); and concern with forms of harm unaccounted
for by the dominant articulation of rights. That is where the similarities end, however.
The book does not address itself to the coincidence (or otherwise) of their contemporan-
eous rise amidst the economic shocks of the 1970s or their shared commitment to carving
out a sphere of individual freedom. Instead, Bowsher situates both developments within a
wider conjuncture, cybernetic capitalism, and devotes himself to unpacking its influence
on contemporary human rights practices. The book draws on extensive archival material
and secondary literature, including bodies of scholarship, such as Science & Technology
Studies and Digital Sociology, not typically brought into conversation with human rights
scholarship. Bowsher unearths a rich seam of insight into how ‘informatisation’has neu-
tered the radicalism of human rights by imposing decontextualised and depoliticised
mediated practices of ’seeing’injustice.
The book begins by making the case that the rise of neoliberalism is more appropri-
ately understood as a legacy of the cold war ‘mania’for cybernetics (p. 33).
Cybernetics applies homeostatic principles of ‘information control’to complex
systems: information in the form of signal is relayed between sender and receiver,
effects are computed, and adjustments are made. According to Bowsher, a host of
1002 Social & Legal Studies 32(6)
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting