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From Human Rights To Fundamental Rights: On The Consequences Of A Conceptual Distinction, Gianluigi Palombella

Gianluigi Palombella

This article introduces a peculiar distinction between "human" rights and "fundamental" rights, explaining through diverse areas, the role that the difference can play. Rights are loaded with contrasting properties and burdens, opposing features and values (neutral, pre-political, negotiable, democratic, etc.). On the contrary, we should accept - on one side - human rights as moral visions of what is due to human beings, deontological imperatives, even if abstract. But on the other side we cannot ignore the ethical problems: e.g. those resulting from their blind implementation. We need to enhance the institutional, legal and ethical-political meaning of "fundamental" rights, i.e. …