Axiology of human rights on the premises and determinants of contemporary discourse in the philosophy of international law

Abstract

Considering the pluralism of the axiological sources of human rights, we claim that it is necessary to realize that we are facing at the moment an analytic extension of both the “number” of human rights (appearance of new generations of human rights), as well as the “quantitative quality” of human rights due to newly uncovered axiological sources such as the appearance of new values or a redefinition of existing ones. In the presented context of the axiology of human rights and the axiology of their protection, it is easy to observe the axiological pluralism of the two spheres as well as numerous attempts to make the exegesis and interpretation both relative and instrumental1 in a domestic, European, and international sphere. Attempts to limit human rights in a camouflaged manner in the jurisdiction practice of particular states are quite abundant and an axiological justification of legal solutions that would make the implementation and protection of those rights (in particular those of the third, fourth and fifth generations) ineffectual—de facto (not de iure, since from a formal and legal point of view they correspond to declared rights and, without exception, the protected ones) is the guarantee of community security and, paradoxically, the protection of other people (i.e., the protection of religious sentiments, family, public morality based usually on the rules of the dominant religion). When transposing these problematics from the state perspective to the intra- and trans-state level, we need to demonstrate that in the international law of protection of human rights, limitation of these rights may also take place as a result of extra-normative factors due to so-called “instrumental relativism”, applied in the function of current political interests for which intrinsic human dignity happens to be infringed. We also claim that the active factor of that critical crossing point is not faults in the law or its interpretation, nor is it faults of ethics, but rather the faults of what is going on within so-called Realpolitik.