Komentarz

  "Human Rights and Their Limits", Wiktor Osiatyński, Cambridge Press, 2009

 

“Human Rights and Their Limits” shows that the concept of human rights has developed in waves: each call for rights serves the purpose of social groups that try to stop further proliferation of rights after their own goals are reached. Although defending the universality of human rights as norms of behavior, Wiktor Osiatyński admits that the philosophy on human rights does not need to be universal. He calls for a “soft universalism” that will not impose rights on others but will share the experience of freedom and help the victims of human rights violations. He also suggests that the enjoyment of social rights should be contingent on the recipient's contribution to society.

Although a state of unlimited democracy threatens rights, excessive rights can limit resources indispensable for democracy. This book argues that although rights are a prerequisite of freedom, they should be balanced with other values that are indispensable for social harmony and personal happiness.
 
Wiktor Osiatyński is a professor at the Central European University in Budapest, where he teaches at the CEU Legal Program. He is a former codirector of the Chicago Law School's Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe and an advisor to a number of constitutional committees in Poland's Parliament. The author of more than twenty books, Osiatyński is on the boards of the Open Society Institute (OSI), the OSI Justice Initiative, and the Human Rights and Governance Grant Program. In 2007, he cofounded the Women's Party in Poland.
 
 
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