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Abstract

This thesis sets off from the observation that the practices of argumentation in IHRL are remarkably diverse. Both in terms of legal construction and rhetorical articulation, human rights arguments take different forms and use contrasting rationales, ultimately sustaining divergent ideas of worth. Through comparative methodology, this work explores and explains this diversity. It dissects and analyses 15 narratives of IHRL spread throughout five issue-areas and taken from documents authored by institutions, courts, NGOs, international experts, and other actors whose voices are deemed somewhat consequential for the whole of IHRL. This exercise yields the conclusion that a defining feature of IHRL is its discursive plasticity, which allows actors to stretch legal and rhetorical arguments so as to render them persuasive in specific contexts and in pursuance of specific goals. Discursive plasticity, however, is not without limits, and so the practice of claim-making in IHRL is bound by requirements of legality and substantive plausibility. This work studies these limits by reflecting on the meaning of legality in IHRL and on the content of human rights as a theory of justice. Lastly, these observations are considered against the backdrop of the current situation of IHRL, so as to shed light on the role and possibilities of discursive heterogeneity and plasticity in contemporary times.

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