Description
This paper explores four crucial historical moments in the emergence of modern theories of human rights, examining the ways in which they relate to themes of police power and fugitivity. I examine the models of human rights elaborated by John Locke and the French Revolutionaries, models traditionally understood as formative of liberal conceptions of universal human rights. I argue that the logics of property and race which underpin the philosophies of both Locke and the Revolutionaries ultimately tie liberal conceptions of human rights to police power, a form of power which necessitates the exclusion of certain (poor and racialised) persons from society and the rights it is meant to ensure. Contrastingly, I examine the early writings of Marx and the example of marronage during the Haitian Revolution in order to conceptualise an alternative, fugitive model of human rights. I demonstrate that Marx’s early writings on wood theft showcase the potential for an anti-property, anti-police model of rights founded in fugitive political action. Equally, the fugitive activity of marronage during slave revolt in Saint Domingue provides a form of direct political action which subverts the racialised logics of police power which strive to exclude certain people from the realm of human rights.
