A number of commentators have argued that a full understanding of Agamben's approach to modern politics is not possible without an appreciation of at least some aspects of his work on language (see Watkin 2010; Birmingham 2011). When we think of language as the key attribute of the human, this opens up the question of the relationship between language and human rights. Certainly, human rights have traditionally been couched in language, and certainly language is constitutive of community. Traditionally, it has been said that to use language is to be in a community of fellow users. This seems to be a much more open approach than that taken by political discourse, where it is a question of determining what a public sphere is and who can be a member of it. If the ‘savage’, in Arendt's terms, cannot be a member of a public sphere, we know (as Arendt already knew) that the savage is nevertheless already part of a community, or at least a plurality, of speakers, who, in virtue of this fact, can communicate across every cultural divide. This is to say, too, that in order to facilitate such communication, language has no a priori content. Eventually, we must recognise that, in light of this, and in light of Agamben's analysis, human rights similarly have no a priori content. To be human is to be able to give content to language. To be human is, by extension, to be able to give content to human rights in allowing their exposure.