Both in a short article entitled «Beyond human rights» and also in Homo sacer I, Giorgio Agamben argued about the decadence of human rights, taking up some lines typewritten by Hannah Arendt. In this piece of work, I intend to account for the approximations that Arendt made about the topic of human rights, based on the desperate situation that afflicted stateless and refugees during the early part of the twentieth century. Then I will summarize how Agamben takes over these arguments and proposes the figure of the refugee as a mold for a categorial renewal. Finally, based on some suspicions delineated in Karl Marx’s work, I will stand out the limitations presented in this so urgent renewal categorial preached by the Italian author.