DRAFT
THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION, NEW INTERNATIONAL LAW
AND GLOBAL ARCHITECTURE
Fernand Keuleneer 1
“International Law, Democratic Accountability,
and Moral Diversity”
June 13-14, 2004
A Constitution for Europe
The members of the enlarged European Union are currently rediscussing
the “Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for
Europe” (the “Constitution”), which was submitted by the
President of the ad-hoc European Convention on the Future of
Europe, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, to the European Council
meeting held in Thessaloniki on June 20, 2003.
For understandable reasons, most of the discussions have been
focused on the functioning of the Union’s political
institutions; in addition, there is the highly symbolic,
though in view of possible future enlargement perhaps not
merely academic, debate about including a reference to
Christianity in the preamble of the Constitution.
Much less attention is given to the provisions of the
Constitution which deal with fundamental rights and
citizenship of the Union, and with the relationship among the
law of the European Union (“Union law”), international law,
and the laws of the Member States.
1
Fernand Keuleneer (tel: 32-2-209 11 22; e-mail:
fernand.keuleneer@ks4v.be) is practising law in Brussels with the firm
Keuleneer-Storme-Vanneste-Van Varenbergh-Verhelst.
The Constitution provides that “The Union shall recognise the
rights, freedoms and principles set out in the Charter of
Fundamental Rights which constitutes Part II of this
Constitution.” (art. 7). Part II incorporates into the
Constitution the “Charter of Fundamental Rights of the
European Union”, adopted by the meeting of the European
Council held in Nice on December 7, 2000. Those rights,
freedoms and principles as set forth in Part II range from
“Human dignity” (art. II-1) and “Right to life” (art. II-2)
over “Non-discrimination” (art. II-21) and “The rights of the
child” (art. II-24), to “Health care” (art. II-35) and
“Consumer Protection” (art. II-38). They include classical
“freedom rights” as well as “economic and social rights” or
“principles” - which can hardly be considered as rights in the
classical sense. Article II-51 limits their scope of
application by providing that “The provisions of this Charter
are addressed to the Institutions, bodies and agencies of the
Union with due regard for the principle of subsidiarity and to
the Member States only when they are implementing Union law.”
(art. II-51, 1.) and that “This Charter does not extend the
field of application of Union law beyond the powers of the
Union or establish any new power or task for the Union, or
modify powers and tasks defined in the other Parts of the
Constitution.” (art. II-51, 2.).
With respect to the relationship among Union law,
international law, and the laws of the Member States, the
Constitution confirms (as it had already evolved over time)
that “The Constitution, and law adopted by the Union’s
Institutions in exercising competences conferred on it, shall
have primacy over the law of the Member States.” (art. 10-1),
and declares that the Union “shall contribute to strict
observance and development of international law, including
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espect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.”
(art. 3, 4.).
Why the Constitution is bound to have consequences beyond the
intentions of most of those in favor
I submit that the adoption of this Constitution could have
far-reaching consequences, beyond the intentions of most of
those in favor, in that it may lead to (i) the
constitutionalization of private law, (ii) a new model of
regulation with a greatly increased role for the judiciary,
(iii) a European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) similar to the US
Supreme Court (USSC) model, and (iv) a creeping transfer of
powers to the European Union.
It is certainly correct to note that not all the “freedoms,
rights and principles” mentioned in the Charter (Part II) of
the Constitution are phrased in such a way that they would
directly give rise to individual rights which are precise
enough to be able to be claimed. Often, the Constitution
provides that a right shall be enjoyed “in accordance with
Union law and national laws and practices”, thereby arguably
reducing or even eliminating the direct effect of the
constitutional provision. Other provisions do not include
such a reference. For instance, the provision on nondiscrimination
reads as follows: “Any discrimination based on
any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin,
genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or
any other opinion, membership of a national minority,
property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall
be prohibited” (art. II-21).
The precise scope of application of the Charter provisions
remains unclear. As mentioned above, it is written into the
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Constitution that the Charter shall apply only in relation to
Union law. Notwithstanding this explicit limitation, it is
somehow hard to accept that the fundamental rights of the
citizens of the Union, as listed in the Constitution of the
Union, shall only apply to a segment of the law governing the
lives of those citizens. The mere fact that they are listed
in the Constitution awards them a central place in the legal
system. Any individual will be able to argue before a court
that some national law violates his rights as a citizen of the
Union. It will then be the court’s decision whether indeed
there is a binding norm of Union law which has been infringed
upon.
Such an infringement can occur in an area in which the Union
has powers, but has not acted (yet). The Union could then be
obliged to act in order to remedy the violation, and, pending
action undertaken by the Union, the problematic national law
would cease to have effect. If the infringement occurs in an
area in which the Union does not have powers, it may be argued
that the very violation of the rights as a citizen creates a
basis for the Union to intervene. The abovementioned
provision of art. II-51, 2. would seem to stand in the way
hereof, but the existing powers of the Union are large and
unspecific enough to neutralize the said limitation. For
instance, the Union shall share competence with the Member
States in numerous areas which are not defined in a very
precise way (internal market; economic, social and territorial
cohesion, consumer protection…)(art. 13) and may take
supporting, coordinating, or complementary action in areas
such as culture and education (art. 16). In the event of a
shared competence, the Member States exercise their competence
to the extent that the Union has not exercised, or has decided
to cease exercising, its competence.
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Also, it remains to be seen to what extent the rights of the
Charter will be enforceable vis-à-vis Union institutions and
national governments only, or also vis-à-vis individuals and
private entities. Clearly, the Charter goes far beyond the
relationship between the State (government) and the
individual: when it provides that in the fields of medicine
and biology, the free and informed consent of the person must
be respected, or that everyone has the right to the protection
of personal data concerning him or her, such a provision is
not meant to apply only between the government and the
individual. Other example: since the economy of the text is
clear in this respect, there are also no convincing arguments
to assume that the non-discrimination provision of art. II-21
(see above) would apply to government action only. While in
many cases the enjoyment of the basic rights and freedoms will
have to be guaranteed and materialized by law and require
legislation, it appears highly unlikely that the mere absence
of legislative action could lead to the suspension-in-fact of
a fundamental right.
If the ECJ is further elevated into a full fledged Constitutional
Court as is now proposed, then, necessarily and inherently,
in every single area where European law has priority
over national law, the ECJ will always determine the extent of
its own powers, and no political counterbalance will be
effective. Indeed, the ECJ may always find a basis in the
Constitution to overturn whatever legislative act. It seems
disingenuous, and contrary to institutional dynamics, to count
on appointment procedures, or legal theories, or self-restraint,
to prevent this from happening.
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A new model of regulation
I submit that even those in favor of a federal Europe are not
necessarily happy with the Charter, and with the status,
powers and role of the ECJ resulting from the incorporation of
the Charter in the Constitution. Not all European federalists
applaud a constitutional system in which courts rather than
elected bodies are the engine of law-making and have the final
say.
For example, this Constitution, if adopted, would have a
profound impact on the regulatory process in the Union: it
would evolve from regulation by the mechanism of politics,
through agencies setting general norms and standards, into
regulation by rights based litigation, through courts
rendering judgments in wide variety of individual cases.
Such a development would take shape along the following lines.
Creation of new rights and entitlements. The new model
functions by attributing the central role in the regulatory
system to the assertion of legal claims based upon the
violation of individual or group rights. In order to be able
to assert a claim, some - legal - right or entitlement has to
pre-exist which is then deemed violated. Traditionally, a
claimant could derive and assert a right vis-à-vis another
person from either a breach of contract by that person, from
the application of the principles of tort law to damages which
he incurred, or from some specific piece of legislation
granting specific rights or entitlements. Rights generally
followed from obligations; the obligation (performing a
contractual obligation, the obligation to compensate damages
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caused by one's fault or negligence) came first - a person's
right was the result of another person's legal obligation.
Increasingly however, contracts or tort law or specific
legislation are bound to become the less important basis for
asserting and litigating claims. More often, claims will tend
to be founded on entitlements grounded in fairly absolute,
general and open-ended rights of a new type, such as the right
to a clean and safe environment, the right to health, the
right not to be harassed or the right not to be discriminated
against - the latter on the basis of a manifold of criteria.
Here, obligations follow from rights: first come the rights -
a person's obligation is the result of another person's right.
It is the traditional system put on its head. Such new rights
can be individual or collective in nature. They may - and do
- affect a very broad range of human activity. Their
proliferation adds a legal dimension to virtually every type
of relationship in society, thereby multiplying potential
claims, and increasing the volume of litigation.
Enforcement. The new rights and entitlements can be enforced
through litigation - by individuals, but very often also by
groups. Those groups include groups to which an individual
actually belongs, but also advocacy groups including nongovernmental
organisations (NGO's). They may seek and obtain
jurisdiction in the most amenable and willing forum.
Removal of collective decision-making through politics.
Traditionally, regulation amounted to the setting of
collective standards. Those standards were the result of
deliberations through the political and/or administrative
process. Their aim was to achieve certain policy goals which,
collectively, were deemed worth pursuing, and simultaneously
to create certainty and predictability for those who had to
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comply. In the new system, government and politicians have
transferred the burden of the regulatory process to
individuals and groups in civil society, to whom they grant
general rights and entitlements, which then have to be further
defined and made concrete by using the court system. By
nature however, judges rule in individual cases, and trends in
case law only appear from a manifold of diverging judgments,
and are always open for challenge through new cases.
Moreover, case law does not create a binding general norm or a
sure standard upon which to rely. The outcome of one case can
always change in the next case, or not be generally applied.
Consequently, the actors in society, such as business, cannot
know with a sufficiently high degree of certainty what the law
is and, therefore, which their obligations under the law are.
In order to argue that a legal obligation is breached, it is
no longer required to show the violation of a specific norm or
standard. It is sufficient to assert the violation of an
abstract right and leave the "political decision" to the
court.
Accountability. Actors in society will no longer be
exclusively accountable to the State for compliance with
collective norms. They will, in addition, become accountable
to a multitude of groups.
The transformation of international law and the Constitution
Not only will the Constitution have a significant impact upon
European Union law and upon the law of the Member States of
the Union, but it will also be tied in with a global shift
towards new international law.
Classical international law (the Law of Nations) governed the
legal aspect of relations among entities legally recognized on
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the international level, i.e. primarily - if not exclusively -
States. Although international law is binding on its
subjects, it does not provide whether and if so to what extent
it should have a direct effect in the internal order. Those
subject to international law retain the liberty to decide how
its norms will be implemented. The international political or
legal system did not have any direct authority vis-à-vis the
individual, who was considered as a citizen of his State, and
who had to depend on his own State and its political and legal
system for the protection of his individual rights.
However, this picture is changing fast.
Increasingly, the individual has been made the
addressee/beneficiary of international law, mainly as a result
of action undertaken by the United Nations following the
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Since then,
international law has increasingly become a direct source of
individual rights and obligations. The role of the State in
the formation, reception and implementation of international
law, once considered essential, has become much less crucial.
The balance between international and national (domestic) law
is being profoundly modified; international law is now often
directly applicable, without transmission or intermediation by
national law.
A large number of States already accept the priority of
international law, meaning that in the event of a conflict
between a norm of national law and a norm of international
law, the latter will prevail. The "monistic" position,
similarly accepted by a large number of States, holds that the
superposition of international law does not even require any
prior intervention on the part of the "receiving" State. No
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legislative act or even constitutional provision can prevent
the application of whichever international legal norm.
The legalizing role of human rights. The principal sources of
classical international law are treaties and customs. Whereas
a treaty only binds the parties which entered into the treaty,
all subjects of international law must respect customary law.
To be recognized as custom, a norm or rule should be the
expression of a universal consensus 2 , and must be perceived as
a norm or rule of a legal rather than a political or moral
nature.
What does attribute to a consensus its legal, rather than a
moral or political nature ? Since it is now beyond doubt that
human rights have obtained the status of international legal
norms, a consensus will be deemed to be of a legal nature if
it exists with respect to some recognized human right. Hence,
by asserting a link between some international consensus and
human rights, the content of this consensus becomes more than
the mere expression of a political objective or a moral
statement. It acquires legal status, and is made part of
international customary law. Establishing and promoting a
link with human rights is therefore a convenient method to
transform a political program into a legal issue, and by doing
so to impose its universal acceptance and application, not
through political majorities but as a norm of international
2
"Consensus" must not be confounded with "unanimity". An
international consensus does not necessarily require a unanimous vote at
the conclusion of some organized legislative conference. No hard rules
exist to determine whether a consensus exists; it is often a matter of
impression and conviction. These days, resolutions of a wide variety of
formal and informal bodies, such as specialized UN-sponsored conferences,
are often presented as the expression of a new consensus in the
international community. Consequently, these conclusions are becoming (and
designed to become) norms, standards and reference points of international
law. In order to achieve this status, it is sufficient that they are
accepted as such by the competent courts. Hence, the paper-intensive
process of creating and expressing a "consensus" is not legally neutral,
but contributes to or results in the creation of new and enforceable
international law.
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law. There exists no mechanism that would prevent the
contents of such a human rights linked program to be further
interpreted, updated, or expanded, by courts or in various
bodies, agencies and conferences. This may accurately be
described as a system of auto-reference.
Two features make the use of this concept very powerful and
efficient in terms of its political and ideological
objectives:
(i)
(ii)
Human rights are addressed to individuals and
accelerate the process of making international law
directly applicable and enforceable. To the extent
it would be held by some that international law is
still addressed in the first place to States, it is
clear that their role is reduced to the
implementation and application of norms, rules and
prescriptions established under the new
international human rights law. A "negligent" State
could be exposed to legal action.
Human rights fall within the category of fundamental
rights. Human rights being considered as fundamental
rights, they occupy the highest place in the
hierarchy of legal norms and must be upheld by
everyone, including the "international community"
and "civil society", against each violation by a
State, any center of political power or any other
group or entity in society.
International law and the Constitution. As mentioned above,
the Constitution provides for the “strict observance” of
international law by the Union. I submit that the rightsbased
constitution of the European Union will reinforce the
transformation of international law into a rights-based global
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law, and function as a transmission channel by greatly
facilitating the import of the new international law into
national law.
European Union law is a body of law with supranational
characteristics and therefore with a higher degree of
penetration in national law than classical international law.
There can be no question that the national laws of each of the
Member States of the European Union will be profoundly
affected by the Constitution, which, when adopted, will be at
the top of their hierarchy of legal norms. Whereas the role
of constitutional rights-based litigation has so far remained
limited, it can be advanced with a high degree of certainty
that the Constitution, for the various reasons explained
above, will be an engine for expansion of this type of
litigation.
Such a “constitutional common law” approach will offer
extraordinary opportunities for the importation and
transmission of the new international law, which the Union
will “strictly observe”. In practice, it will become
sufficient for a court to refer to some human right (a
“fundamental international right") to render obsolete any
provision of national law, even a posterior legislative act.
The scope and the undefined and vague nature of many new human
rights lead to a loss of power and legal authority by the
political branches of government in favor of this
international legal order.
If courts and tribunals can be pulled into the dynamics
between the "international community" and "civil society", the
alliance between international bodies and NGO's, this new
legal, and eventually also political, order can be made
dominant. Such a development will inevitably extend into and
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affect all areas of law, as each legal system develops its own
coherence.
The inevitable drive for a new coherence will be assured by
the role of the norms at the top of the new hierarchy (i.e.
the fundamental rights in international law), and by the
creation or reinforcement of international institutions or
authorities entrusted with defining their contents. One
notices already a re-interpretation of existing norms in the
light of new interpretations developed by UN-agencies.
Simultaneously, constitutional litigation in the EU will
provide a further impetus to the introduction of consensusbased
binding norms in international law and become a source
of international law. Also court decisions take part in the
creation of a legally relevant consensus. If and when the ECJ
takes on its role as chief-interpreter of a “21 st century
rights-based constitution”, it will be impossible not to
consider its judgments as important contributions in
discerning a consensus.
The political side of the equation: towards a global citizen
community
We have argued that since the concept “sovereign State”
occupies a much less central place in the international order,
and the place of the State in international law is fading
away, international law is developing into global law. Unlike
classical international law, a global system of law attempts
to structure and shape a unified “global citizen community” of
individuals, which does not fundamentally differ from a
“national community”.
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With networks increasingly assuming the tasks and roles of
States, some concern with respect to democratic accountability
of such mechanism seems to be in order.
Interestingly, a similar analysis can sometimes be found on
the (far) left. In “A Theory of Imperial Law: A Study on U.S.
Hegemony and the Latin Resistance” (Global Jurist Frontiers,
Volume 3, Issue 2, 2003), Ugo Mattei writes: “The rethorical
device used in the process of repressing deviance has been a
genuinely legal concept, that of “international human rights.”
Indeed, a doctrine of limited sovereignty in the interest of
international human rights has threatened the traditional
nature of international law as a decentralized system based on
territoriality, and has advocated the need for centralization
in order to make international law more similar to systems of
national law. The International Criminal Court is the most
advanced point of this shift. Ad hoc courts, such as the one
presently used against former Yugoslavian president Slobodan
Milosevic, are the product of an even more open use of
international law as en ex post facto legitimating factor of
war. Today we believe that international law is not natural
but positive law, whose fundamental sources are treaties and
customs. Tomorrow, we might believe that international law is
a worldwide legal system grounded in uniformity and in
commonly shared ideals of law and order. (…) Hence,
sovereignty can be routinely addressed as deviance from a
standard of legality grounded in U.S.-constructed
international human rights.” Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
point to the same in “Empire” (Cambridge, 2003): “The
transition we are witnessing today from traditional
international law, which was defined by contracts and
treaties, to the definition and constitution of a new
sovereign, supranational world order (and thus to the imperial
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notion of right), however incomplete, gives us a framework in
which to read the totalizing social process of Empire.”
We have brought to the attention how the European Union and
the United Nations system are increasing the role of human
rights and NGO’s in the formation of law, and thereby
contribute to the merger of national, European (supranational)
and international law.
Authors on the left tend to emphasize the role of the United
States. At first glance, this looks awkward since the United
States, and in particular the present administration, have
opposed a number of United Nations initiatives and decisions
which would have further encouraged such tendencies. However,
this first impression may not be entirely accurate.
Liberal internationalism is often the current which is most
closely associated with the rise of new international law. It
is described by Charles Krauthammer in the following terms:
“Liberal internationalism seeks through multilateralism to
transcend power politics, narrow national interest and,
ultimately, the nation-state itself. The nation-state is seen
as some kind of archaic residue of an anarchic past, an
affront to the vision of a domesticated international arena.
This is why liberal thinkers embrace the erosion of
sovereignty promised by the new information technologies and
the easy movement of capital across borders. They welcome the
decline of sovereignty as the road to the new globalism of a
norm-driven, legally-bound international system broken to the
mold of domestic society.” (The Unipolar Moment Revisited, The
National Interest, Winter 2002/2003).
But an analysis of the September 2002 document “The National
Security Strategy of the United States” shows that also the
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present US administration appears to blur the distinction
between an international and a global order.
The document begins with the statement: “The great struggles
of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism
ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom – and
a single sustainable model for national success: freedom,
democracy and free enterprise”.
This strikes as a somewhat strange opening statement of a
document on national security strategy. In such a document,
one would indeed expect to find a clarification of which are
considered to be fundamental national interests, and what type
of international order is compatible with those interests.
The message from this particular document appears to be: only
a global order, not merely an international order, is in the
U.S. interest. “Freedom is the non-negotiable demand of human
dignity; the birthright of every person – in every
civilization. (…) Today, humanity holds in its hands the
opportunity to further freedom’s triumph over all these foes.
The United States welcomes our responsibility to lead in this
great mission.”
With all the emphasis on the “values of freedom” as “nonnegotiable
demands of human dignity”, which “will guide our
actions and our words in international bodies”, it is hard not
to have the impression that the traditional concept of a
community of states, abiding by the classical rules of
international law, is being replaced by something different.
Indeed, there does not seem to be any longer a qualitative
difference between enhancing and protecting a global order of
freedom, and structuring relations among states. One may be
forgiven to conclude that in order to preserve such a “global
order of freedom”, a further osmosis between international and
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global order will be encouraged. Such would require and imply
increased possibilities for local actors to invoke norms of
global law (“natural rights” ?) in opposition to national law.
Therefore, it seems inevitable that a limitation of the role
of states and the gradual, piecemeal transformation of
international into global law will inevitably result from this
particular approach of “national security”.
As a result of this development, truly “foreign” affairs will
cease to exist. As the 2002 document puts it: “Today, the
distinction between domestic and foreign affairs is
diminishing”. Not only will this affect the thinking
regarding the role of law, but also the thinking on the
legitimacy of the use of force. In an order where “foreign
affairs” have virtually disappeared, “war” has lost its
original meaning. The use of force is increasingly equated
with police action, becoming just one policy tool in addition
to other available tools.
Philip Bobbitt sees a society of market-states emerge,
embedded in a new global order which is based on free
circulation and openness: free circulation of capital,
investment, goods, services, ideas, and for some also labour
(Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles, 2002; see also Andrew
Bacevich, American Empire, 2002). In such a global order,
according to Bobbitt, “Two tasks lie before us: to decide, as
states, when it is appropriate to use force in this new world;
and to determine, as a society of states, when to collectively
sanction the use of that force in the world. This is a matter
of creating precedents and case law. (…) These precedents and
case law, however, are not those generated by courts.”
(ibidem). An argument can indeed be made that international
law has perhaps gone too far in restricting the legality of
war to the case of self-defense. The question is, however,
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which paradigm and which legal principles will guide those
decisions. What Bobbitt seems to propose is to replace
classical international law on the legality of the use of
force with case law on the subject. Once the existing legal
principles abandoned however, everything is possible. It is
very likely that, in the absence of a qualitative distinction
between an international and a global (market) order, the new
legal principles transpiring in such case law will be those
that assimilate the use of force with policing the global
order, no longer based on the distinction of spheres. Case
law is not a substitute for ordering principles, and such
principles are notably absent in such an approach.
“But with the Long War won, why do we need a structuring
paradigm at all ?” asks Bobbitt. “Why not simply make
decisions on an ad hoc basis, recognizing that, in any case,
these decisions will not be randomly made or irrational, but
will guided by our best judgments as to what appears to
increase American power and freedom of action ? The answer
lies in the relationship of strategy to law. Legitimacy, not
merely power, was what the Long War was fought over. Until
that fundamental question could be settled, conquest and
defeat alone could not end the war. Legitimacy is the ground
of law; it arises from consistent practices and tacit
acceptance and gives law its authority” (ibidem).
It is indeed impossible to shape a political order which is
disconnected from a legal order, and vice versa, a legal order
will very much influence the shaping of a political order
By way of conclusion
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The amalgamation of the national and international spheres
into a global sphere is favored from different philosophical
and political angles.
First of all, there are those motivated by an anti-statist
philosophy who believe that the individual ought to be the
only subjects of a world community and its legal order, and
the free associations of civil society their principal actors.
State and government are considered as oppressive and
encroaching on the domain of freedom. The global order should
be a market order. Natural rights should be non-negotiable
and enforceable everywhere, and the legal order of the world
community should provide the instruments to do so. This group
is traditionally situated on the libertarian right, has
limited affinity as such with international bodies and
agencies, but seems to be very much in favor of
“constitutional litigation” in a common law manner. Its
operating basis is mostly the United States, but its influence
in Europe is marginally increasing through a network of think
tanks. Some European liberals, such as Alain Madelin, would
fit in this category.
A second category is constituted by those counting on networks
to promote a new social and political agenda, one of personal
autonomy and multiculturalism, which is apparently less easy
to pursue through majoritarian decision-making. Here one
finds organized attempts to form, through an interplay with
international bodies and NGO’s, a new international consensus
on the basis of human rights. This consensus should serve as
the basis for new norms and principles of international law,
to be imported into national legal systems. The adherents of
this approach use courts as their favored transmission
channels. Traditionally strong among the American liberal
left, they have gained influence in Europe. The EU Charter of
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Fundamental Rights, and its incorporation in the Constitution,
came into being under the influence of this group.
A third current endeavors to create a new world order based on
the principles of democratic capitalism. Some in this group
find their inspiration in natural law and moral theology.
They are opposed to the “new human rights” agenda and to
judicial activism, but still want the legal system to enhance
the agenda of spreading democratic capitalism.
Different as the three currents may be on substance, they do
not seem to be so far apart in their concept of the proper
relationship of national to international law. All three see
international law as an instrument which should serve to usher
nations into a global order, under the supervision of either
the United Nations or the United States.
There is nothing wrong, of course, with a worldwide respect
for the dignity of the human person, quite the contrary
indeed. But not all rights said to be fundamental or human
rights are perceived as such in all cultures. And seeking to
enhance human dignity does not translate automatically in the
need to create a global legal system. Such a system does
generally not serve to achieve the goals which its promoters,
of different political coloration, pretend they seek to
achieve, but serve to redistribute power, to the detriment of
autonomous and sovereign states and for the benefit of global
players, sometimes of doubtful legitimacy.
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