| DIVERSITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

“Whoever says humanity wants to deceive” - this notorious statement by Carl Schmitt also casts doubt on human rights universalism. For human rights, a claim to humanity is doubly important. On the one hand, these rights are granted to every human being as such, without further conditions. On the other hand, their observance or disregard concerns humanity as a whole. But the realization of human rights is a political task, and humanity as such is not a subject capable of political action.

Politically speaking, the world is a pluriverse. The concrete consequence for human rights is that they are respected, protected and promoted to different degrees in different states and parts of the world. What is more, the existing supranational institutions, which were created to guarantee human rights across national borders, are now under attack from authoritarian nationalists all over the world. The growing power-political particularism threatens to take us back to a world entirely to Carl Schmitt's liking. However, it should be borne in mind that humanity as an argument can actually be misused to deny the right of political collectives to self-determination and to curtail individual freedoms. This is the case, for example, when it is argued that we must suspend civil liberties in order to avert existential dangers of global significance.

Additionally, there are further doubts whether humanity is still an argument that points into the direction of universal rights. Some authors would like to subsume human rights under a broader category of rights for all sentient beings, for example. Others consider nature as such to be the subject of rights. Even if such proposals do not usually replace human rights, but merely want to add further rights holders to the human being, they do raise doubts about the fundamental importance of being human for the justification of our moral and political status as holders of rights.

The course is aimed at scholars from a wide range of disciplines. In particular (but not only) papers from philosophy, law, political science, sociology, psychology, or pedagogy are considered. The presentations may be of a more theoretical nature or present empirical research projects.

If you want to contribute, please send an abstract of <250 words to: ana.matan@fpzg.hr by February, 28^th, 2026. You will be notified by March, 9^th, 2026.

The participation fee for the course is 60 EUR.