| General description |
Moral experience and the question of what is good, what is just, what is right, what is due or what is happiness are consubstantial to human reality from the very beginning. The attempt to answer these questions in order to understand the moral dimension of the person and to justify the moral phenomenon corresponds to a branch of philosophy called ethics.
Ethics is a kind of practical and normative knowledge that guides the decisions and actions of human beings in order to shape their lives in a good and just manner. However, the meaning of the good and justice is not univocal and has received different answers throughout history from different moral systems. This is especially the case in our plural societies, where globalization has intensified relations and interactions across national borders, giving rise to ethical debates about the benefits and costs of this process; its influence on freedom, equality or justice; its consequences on the environment, working conditions, traditional ways of life or future generations; or how to balance universalism and particularism.
In this context, ethics must facilitate cooperation and dialogue among the different ethical traditions and conceptions in order to define a universally valid criterion compatible with these traditions, i.e. a common ethical framework of what is just and right. Probably, the proposal for a universal ethical criterion that has received the widest support is precisely that of the human rights.
The idea of human rights has developed over the centuries, from the first theoretical manifestations in classical Stoicism and modern thought to its embodiment in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is with this declaration that the institutionalization of human rights at the international level has consolidated.
Any introductory approach to the topic of human rights must address the following questions: what is the origin and development of the idea of human rights, what does the term "human rights" refer to and how is it distinguished from other similar concepts, how are human rights classified, what are the essential characteristics that define human rights, and what international institutions are related to human rights. The answers to these questions will provide an overview of the idea of human rights that serves to situate the connections between human rights and globalization.
One of the characteristics generally associated with human rights is their universal character. This character is also distinctive of globalization, understood as a process of deepening of a social condition in which global interconnectedness advances and borders and boundaries are blurred. The reciprocal influences between globalization and human rights are therefore rooted in their shared claim of global extension. Some of the main contemporary debates concerning human rights are closely related to globalization, including the problem of the responsibility of states for rights violations beyond their territories, the responsibility of multinational entities, the role of international NGOs in the promotion of certain human rights, the consideration of the human rights agenda as an ethnocentric proposal, the need to protect the environment from a global perspective or the difficulties in ensuring such protection.
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