The debate on social human rights: ethical imperatives or legal formalization?

Abstract

Objectives Since their explicit formulation at an international level, human rights have been the subject of a virtuous process of affirmation and expansion, even if this history has not always been linear and progressive and geographically there has been no homogeneous distribution, and currently, the greatest concern is for the implementation of second-generation rights and in particular social rights. Material and methods For the implementation of social rights, Sen proposes an approach focused on capabilities understood as the possibility to realize functioning: the analysis focuses on human life and its actual content and in particular on the actual opportunities for human beings to realize their ends. In doing so, Sen enables us to understand that the means necessary for a satisfying human life do not coincide solely with its ends. Results This simple observation provides us with empirical evidence of the weakness of the legal path of human rights, although the so-called legal revolution has contributed a great deal to the culture of human rights, their definition and implementation. Skepticism should not, however, take away the significance of the longer and more complex ethical path, the true one, according to some, capable of designing a more just society based, as Sen wants, on the possibilities of development of men and on their right to be men and to realize themselves according to their own competences and aspirations. Conclusions The strength of rights does not lie in their legal nature, but in their ethical strength: they demand that those in charge of the fate of a state recognize them in each individual in the form of respect for certain freedoms and not in their being recognised as legally formalized and possessing their own legal value.

Keywords

• human rights
• social
• economic and cultural rights
• legislation
• capacities
• functioning
• public debate