The atmosphere of human rights

Abstract

The author discusses some of the most important concerns of legal sociology and Italian politics over the past three decades. Among his subjects he has highlighted two in particular: the state-form and the pragmatics of freedom. The establishment of a new “grammar” of rights is studied in particular. Specifically, he analyses the contributions of F. Cassano (1988). The work highlights the existence of two strategies on citizenship, corresponding to the increased weight of politics in determining rights. This is what he calls the “mimetic model”, characterized by assuming a framework of rights and defined by the same system. But there is also a “recursive model” which emphasizes the possibility of communication and focuses on the debate on neo-contractualism and distributive justice. Both strategies are framed within processes of positivization and proceduralization. The achievement of these rights is displaced, however, to less differentiated levels. From this perspective we should insist on the discovery of separation between rule and decision.