Human Rights and Responsibilities of an International Order

The second half of the XX Century saw the birth of a process of returning to civil cohabitation in the mark of universal values which are encapsulated in the dignity of the person and the legal-ethical imperative: humana dignitas servanda est. This essay discusses how processes of globalisation and de-territorialisation of politics converge in driving governance to express itself with reference to a common normative paradigm and in the perspective of an institutional architecture which fosters the (re)distribution of political processes and government functions over various territorial levels: from that of a local municipality to the United Nations system. The universal Law of human dignity is the compass whose power of guidance is directly proportionate to the order of magnitude of the needs of multi-level governance in the whole world-space. In this essay we propose interpreting the current highly complex transition towards a more just and peaceful world order through the metaphor of a mosaic. For a mosaic to be recognisable, it is not enough to have the tesserae, but they must be put together following a predetermined design. As concerns world order, the essay suggests that all the tesserae are there, but the mosaic cannot be made if no-one takes the trouble to put it together. It further posits that the “tesserae” which are available for composing, advancing and completing the building of positive peace are: international human rights law, international democracy, multi-level governance, human security, the United Nations and the other legitimate multilateral institutions.