Nicola Perugini

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About

Nicola Perugini is a critical scholar whose work interrogates the intersection of law, violence, and political power, with a particular focus on the instrumentalization of human rights. His research primarily explores how rights frameworks, rather than serving as neutral tools of justice, can be weaponized to legitimize state violence, settler colonialism, and international conflict. Perugini’s major contribution lies in theorizing the concept of "rights as weapons," a framework he develops in his highly influential 2020 monograph of the same name, which has garnered 74 citations. This work, co-authored with Neve Gordon, fundamentally challenges conventional understandings of human rights by demonstrating how they are deployed as instruments of domination and exclusion, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Beyond this, his broader scholarship examines the politics of international law, the anthropology of violence, and the role of humanitarianism in conflict zones. Perugini’s work is essential reading for students and researchers in critical legal studies, political anthropology, and Middle East studies, offering a provocative and necessary rethinking of how rights operate in the real world.