Global Power Shifts and the Changing Human Rights Agenda in The Twenty First Century

Abstract

This paper is a critical analysis of how the relationship between the changing global power structure and the reshaping of the international human rights agenda are associated with the twenty first century. It is making the argument that the end of Western Hegemony and the emergence of multipolarity have undermined the universality of liberal human rights norms, substituting them with disputable, pluralist structures based on geopolitical rivalry and normative competition. Empirical research underlines the views on the counterproductive role of Chinese focus on economic growth and sovereignty, Russian disruptive resistance, or selective pragmatism of regional and middle powers in undermining the accountability of the institutions and weakening the enforcement mechanisms. The paper represents the process of retrenchment of core rights where it involves civil liberties, gender equality, migration, and digital privacy as symptomatic of institutional weakness and politicization. The study shows that the human rights issues are becoming reciprocal-dependent of the strategic selectivity and transactional diplomacy in place of principled universality by relating structural power transitions to the particular human rights issues to tackle. Finally, the paper argues that human rights governance in the future would be less about hegemonic enforcement but rather negotiated consensus using various actors and this essentially challenges the basis of legitimate, accountability and sustainability of rights in a disintegrated global order.