Human Rights, Legal Pluralism, and the Freedom of Religion in Malaysia

The so-called crisis of human rights requires a precise diagnosis. Through a theoretical discussion of human rights and legal pluralism in the context of the freedom of religion in Malaysia, this paper suggests that the crisis ought to be understood as something vital to the character of rights. Crisis is not tangential to the human rights project: rights are political objects engendering political responses. Beginning with an excursion into legal positivism and liberalism, the paper argues that analyses of rights based on abstraction and presumptions of homogeneity are confounded in contexts of contested plurality. Secondly, legal pluralism is raised as a more suitable framework for rights. Finally, Augustine and Schmitt offer some clues as to how the political status of human rights might be properly acknowledged. The prominent Malaysian case of Lina Joy provides an ongoing commentary on the dangers of divorcing human rights from this essential political character.