The "Right to the event"

The legality and morality of revolution and resistance

Costas Douzinas

pp. 151-167

in: Pierfrancesco Biasetti, Ferdinando G. Menga (eds), Human rights in a plural ethical framework, Metodo 2 (1), 2014.

Abstract

The rights of modernity, first and foremost the right to resistance against oppression and domination, were created by revolution. The philosophical rejection and the removal of this right from law was an attempt to foreclose radical change by making a particular conception of legal rights the insurance policy for the established order. The attempt was doomed to fail. This essay examines the legal, jurisprudential and moral arguments for the right to resistance. It concludes that a “right to the event” has always accompanied legal rights in a ghostly form ensuring that the law is regularly shaken to its core and not allowed to become sclerotic.