his research offers a reappraisal of Hannah Arendt’s critique of the universality of human rights, examining the nexus between human rights, political membership, and the possibility of exercising rights through the lens of statelessness. The central inquiry of the article explores why human rights—despite their claim to universal applicability—lose their practical efficacy in the absence of a defined political order and the status of citizenship. Within this framework, Arendt’s concept of the “right to have rights” demonstrates that the deprivation of political membership precludes individuals from appearing in the public sphere and effectively exercising their rights. From this perspective, the crisis of human rights is not merely a result of institutional weaknesses but is rooted in the fundamental cleavage between “man” and “citizen” within the modern legal tradition. Employing an analytical-descriptive approach, this study shows that Arendt’s critique challenges the abstract universality of human rights, emphasizing that the actualization of rights is inherently tied to political inclusion and membership in a political community. Finally, the article briefly discusses the theoretical extensions of this critique in contemporary thought, specifically in the works of Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Rancière.