Abstract
Why is it that distinct academic disciplines sometimes have a hard time understanding each other? The discussions at the law faculty of the VU University Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam on 20 and 21 April 2017 with the authors of the book ‘The human right to dominate’ Nicola Perugini and Neve Gordon - showed that legal scholars and social-political scholars have a different understanding of human rights (i.e. what human rights are). More so, social-political scholars, such as Perugini and Gordon seem to be more interested in the consequences of invoking the human rights beyond the immediate legal setting of a national or international court (i.e. what human rights do).