RICERCA ITALIANA     

Rights Protection and Safety. Historical, Legal-philosophical, Political and Bioethical Aspects.

Università degli Studi di Bologna

Abstract

The research project will examine the major features of the relationship between protection of rights and safety in historical, legal-philosophical, political and bioethical terms. The topic has national and international implications and marks a turning point both in current theory and in relation to its applicative dimension. Starting from the complex nature of this relationship, the project plans to tackle some of the theories and practical aspects defining the field of analysis. The first deals with (a) the theory of rights focusing on the relation between the foundation of rights and the role assigned in this sphere to the means used for their protection. From an historical standpoint (a1), this analysis will focus on legal-philosophical thought in the early modern age and on the different ways in which the various models of rights shape their means of protection. Moreover, (a2) the project will esamine the evolution of the international law and the role of jurisdictions up to (a3) the Rawlsian theses on the "law of peoples".
In relation to current debate (b), the research will tackle the relation between the foundation of rights and safety vis-à-vis the opposition in rights foundation between universalism and contextualism (b1). The matching of these two positions aims also to underline the existence of other alternative approaches to the foundation of a scheme of rights, such as so-called "islamic constitutionalism" (b2). The project also aims to disclose the >>>

Principal Investigator

Carla FARALLI Università degli Studi di BOLOGNA

Research Objectives

The main objective of the research project is an analysis of the major features of the relationship between protection of rights and safety in historical, legal-philosophical political and bioethical terms. The topic has national and international implications and marks both a turning point in current international theory (part 1) and an important and effective challenge in their applicative dimension (part 2). The complex nature of this relationship is the starting point from which to tackle two main problems as follows:
1 - One area is going to be the theoretical issues defining the field of analysis. So we will study (a) the theory of rights focused on the relation between the foundation of rights and the role assigned in this sphere to the means used for their protection. And then we will turn to the questions of (b) safety, conceived both as security of rights and right to safety.
From an historical standpoint (a1), this analysis will focus on legal-philosophical thought in the early modern age and on the different ways in which the various models of rights shape their means of protection. The reference point for this research will be the model of natural law theory and its applications in relation to the statute and scope of rights and relations among states (unit IV). The project will then examine (a2) the evolution and role of international law in developing and guaranteeing rights. In this field, our attention will focus on the transformations of >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The research project stems from the wide international debate on the foundation and protection of rights and on safety. One of the key features of these analyses is their being focused, from different perspectives, on both national and international issues.
The main topics of analysis can be summarized thus: (a) theory of rights; (b) the theme of safety, understood both as security of rights and as the right to safety; (c) analysis of a new category of rights referring to the tension existing between safety and rights; (d) safety in the bioethical field; (e) a reflection on cultural and normative pluralism, multiculturalism, immigration and rights protection; (f) the right to privacy and safety.
The first point has received the most contributions to date as it affects the origin, foundations, types and guarantees of rights, and has produced different theoretical models for the definition and foundation of human rights, expressed in the founding paradigms - the Aristotelian-Thomistic one, the traditional paradigm grounded on the customary law of the land, the 'natural-universal' law doctrine paradigm and the republican paradigm - through which subjective rights were conceived in the period from the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century. The modern charters of rights assume, for example, the 'natural-universal' law doctrine paradigm, which grants subjective rights to every man as such. The charters seem to assign a central role to the right to >>>