Against the background of an ongoing debate about the role of human rights in the age of decolonisation this essay approaches the issue from two different angles. It concentrates on the paradoxical situation that anti-colonial movements as well as colonial powers instrumentalised international human rights documents such as the Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, and the European Conventions on Human Rights for achieving their political goals. In combining legal and public discourses in a significant way both sides accused each other of gross human rights violations while at the same time presenting themselves as respecting and even guaranteeing fundamental human rights. Especially during the course of the wars of decolonisation after 1945 this phenomenon became obvious in various diplomatic debates at the United Nations and made universal rights a diplomatic pawn in international debates.

中文翻译：

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支持和反对帝国主义的人权–非殖民化时代的法律和公共话语

在关于非殖民化时代人权作用的持续辩论的背景下，本文从两个不同的角度探讨了这一问题。它集中在反常的情况上，即反殖民运动和殖民大国为实现其政治目标而使用诸如种族灭绝公约，世界人权宣言，日内瓦四公约和欧洲人权公约之类的国际人权文件。双方以重要方式将法律和公共话语结合起来，互相指责对方严重侵犯人权，同时表示自己尊重甚至保障基本人权。