Nonsense on Stilts

The end of human rights?

In the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham famously described natural rights as nothing more than nonsense on stilts. Almost two centuries later, Bentham’s natural rights provided the foundation for human rights. Today, it is less common for human rights to be based on natural rights, but the concern that human rights is at risk of becoming nothing more than nonsense on stilts remains as live as ever.

In Nonsense on Stilts, six essayists including the Liberal Party’s Tim Wilson and the Labor Party’s Terri Butler, respond to Damien Freeman and Catherine Renshaw’s proposals for rescuing human rights in Australia. The collection offers a number of perspectives on what it means to recognise and protect human rights in Australian law and politics today.