Where social rights are located is as difficult and contested a question as that of what those rights are. The talk, focusing on French and British Africa after 1945, explores the relationship of citizenship, social rights, and sovereignty at a time when all of these concepts were uncertain and contested. Might not rights adhere not just to the people of a “nation”, or the people of an empire – who were in some sense British or French – but to the universal quality of the human being? Such a possibility was expressed in the Universal Declaration of 1948. In the era of decolonisation, the controversies about colonial empire led many leaders to assert a universal right to self-determination and national sovereignty. At the same time, universal social rights transcended national boundaries. Any attempt to impose “universal” social norms within the boundaries of a nation-state could be seen as interference, as neo-colonialism. Yet, such arguments presume a naturalness to national borders and a priority of sovereignty over other values – an order of things that was very much in question at a recent point in world history.