Despite its predominance, human rights discourse, for all its claims and potential to challenge deep-rooted injustice, continues to develop without significant reference to community. It is therefore no surprise that poverty, exclusion, and lack of participation continue to thrive and are symptomatic of the failings of the dominant state-and market-based human rights approaches alike. This book presents community – a fundamental source of hope, relief, support and comfort to individuals' lives in cities and villages across Africa – as a better alternative, capable of inspiring the poor and the vulnerable to organise themselves democratically to claim ownership of the processes that determine their human rights. Nigeria is used as a case study to empirically illustrate and develop this argument, especially to present community as an ideal and a form of practice that is best, but not only, illustrated by creative forms of solidarity, co-operation, collaboration, relationships and exchanges between residents of local, small and geographical demarcated communities. Although it is commonly assumed that human rights and community are incompatible concepts, this book attempts to transcend this dichotomy by presenting a concept of human rights, not opposed, but rather established from community, a type of community that is itself constituted by expressions of love and empathy.

Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1 Human Rights and Community: Unlocking the Deadlock
Chapter 2 Are Human Rights Enough?
Chapter 3 Good Governance as Metaphor for Development
Chapter 4 Good Governance and the Marketisation of Human Rights
Chapter 5 The Good Governance of Electricity: Nigeria as Case Study
Chapter 6 Reclaiming Human Rights: A Theory of Community
Chapter 7 Electricity for Community by Community: The Co-operative Model
Conclusion: Imagining a Post-State Human Rights Discourse