How to Counter Attempts by Authoritarian States to Redefine the Concept of Human Rights: Russia’s Use of Human Rights Justifications in Defense of its Invasion of Ukraine

Human rights justification refers to when States activate human rights to justify their decisions and actions. Normally, it is the individual who invokes a human right against the State but with human rights justifications, it is the State that invokes human rights for its own benefits and in so doing turns human rights from being a regime measuring State compliance into an instrument of State governance. Human rights justifications change the foundation of human rights from being the possession of the individual into an instrument controlled by the State. Human rights justifications are re-directed from being aimed at the violating State to instead serving the State. This chapter applies the author’s legal theory of human rights justifications to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, demonstrating how Russia uses human rights as justification for an illegal war against Ukraine. The argument in the chapter is that when human rights are used against themselves in this way, the integrity of the human rights regime risks being weakened.