Human rights in the twentieth century

From the Declaration of the Rights of Man Human and of the Citizen in 1789, until the Universal Declaration in 1948, as well as more recent international treaties and courts, human rights have a philosophical, ideological, political, and legal history. This history is not over, and it is also marked with oppositions and setbacks. Human rights are neither engraved in the marble, nor set in the perspective of linear and smooth progress. They are not guaranteed equally everywhere, and they are violated in many places. In spite of their extension, they remain fragile, incomplete, often violated, not only by authoritarian regimes. Democratic countries are far from being the irreproachable havens of human rights. Even in European democracies they remain curtailed, or poorly enforced, in many areas. Although necessary, human rights mean neither that inevitable progress is ensured, nor that they are an illusory promise. They are also threatened by legal positivism or apolitical humanitarianism. Hence, they must be constantly championed and re-thought. Their deployment and universalization depend above all on people being able to stand up on their behalf. New issues and new battles are looming, in the name of their extension to new causes and the design of new norms. Economic globalization, the threat to the environment, the lot of migrants, sexism, stigmatization of certain minorities – and this list is not exhaustive – require the reaffirmation of the principles acquired without being respected, as well as the elaboration of new forms of protections.

This issue of Communications, in which jurists, philosophers, ethnologists, sociologists, archivists have gathered, deals with the challenges, struggles, contradictions, and criticisms that human rights are facing today.