Issue No 3-4/1995 • 1-2/1996
POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

This issue of the Belgrade Circle journal is intended to point out the main directions of the expansion of the idea of human rights. In this we have not succumbed to naive political euphoria which is increasingly spreading in connection with the formal legal legitimating of the modern state. The process of increasingly visible globalisation of human rights testifies convincingly to the advantages of the legalist model of legitimating. However, the "western" insistence on the universality of human rights can function virtually as a diplomatic and political alibi for post-colonial interventionism. In all cases, the diffusion of demands for general recognition of civic, human and political rights must take into account the social and economic, i.e. structural, limitations of their application. The politics of globalisation of human rights must take into account cultural priorities, regional specificities and local limitations. Otherwise, authoritarian regimes may respond using the geopolitical argument, claiming that the struggle for human rights is nothing but a post-colonial manoeuvre, a conspiracy of the new world order against regional or national interests. Naturally, the global process of adapting the state to the idea of human rights may also work from below, taking into account all cultural, regional or national differences. It is our belief that modern states may without hindrance follow the normative concept of social and political justice precisely by demonstrating international solidarity with individuals or groups whose basic human rights are jeopardised or completely denied.

contents of this issue