OBSERVATIONS ON SEYLA BENHABIB’S INTERPRETATIONS OF THE COSMOPOLITAN RIGHTS

Rezumat

My essay is dedicated to the analysis of aspects of Benhabib’s interpretations of the birth of cosmopolitan rights. The expression “the right to have rights” is contained in different works of Seyla Benhabib: it refers, in the thought of Benhabib, to the birth of a new constellation of human rights. This new constellation of human rights consists in the claim, which every individual may raise, to be acknowledged and protected as a person by the world community. In Benhabib’s view, rights and the interpretation of rights have profoundly changed after and thanks to the different covenants and conventions signed by the countries belonging to the world community for the protection of human rights: this process of transformation of the interpretation of human rights began with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The new dimension of human rights is a cosmopolitan one: it is not merely a national dimension. This new dimension overcomes the dimension of particular countries; it promotes, and, at the same time, it calls for the creation of new juridical spaces. Through this new dimension, moreover, individuals are no longer seen as being only citizens of a particular country: individuals are elevated, thanks to the new dimension of the rights, to the condition of world citizens possessing rights which are independent of their belonging to a particular country. Cosmopolitan norms create a new universe of values, of juridical meanings and of social relationships that did not exist at all before the creation of these norms. Seyla Benhabib has expressed the birth of the new constellation of rights in many of her works such as, for instance, The Rights of Others. Aliens, Residents and Citizens, Another Cosmopolitanism. With Commentaries by J. Waldron, B. Honig, W. Kymlicka, and Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times. The new dimension of rights directly (that is, without the mediation of a particular country) connects every individual to the world community: the right dimension does not depend on a particular country and it is not limited to the validity it possesses within a particular country. The authority that corresponds to and is responsible for, at least, some rights of the individuals is the world community. The right of men qua men, that is, the rights independent of a determined citizenship and not coinciding with a determined citizenship emerge gradually, even though this process is steadily being affected by backlashes. As covenants and conventions signed by the countries of the world community, Benhabib mentions the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948); the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (approved on 28 July 1951); the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination – ICERD – (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 1965); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – ICCPR – (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966); the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – ICESCR – (adopted by United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966); the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women – CEDAW – (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979); the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment – UNCAT – (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1984).
Within the new constellation of human rights, particular countries are being surpassed by the world community: particular countries do not represent the first and last authority for the acknowledgement of rights. Correspondingly, individuals possess determined rights qua human beings: to have certain rights does not depend on the individuals’ possession of a particular citizenship; to have rights depends on the fact that individuals belong to mankind. A new dimension of the individuals comes about: individuals are not only citizens of a country; they are, first of all, human beings, and they have to be recognised as human beings. Benhabib sees a fundamental difference between the Westphalian and the post-Westphalian concept of country and rights. Within the Westphalian interpretation of rights, countries are the first and last authority for the acknowledgement of rights. Within the post-Westphalian interpretation of rights, countries depend on common values and on common principles which they have accepted: countries obligate themselves to the protection of definite rights and definite principles; this means that countries acknowledge these rights and these principles as being over the sovereignty of the countries themselves. A new dimension of countries, a new dimension of rights, and a new dimension of individuals arise at the same time. An indispensable presupposition for the promotion of the integration between inhabitants of a country is, according to Benhabib, that citizenship does not depend on ethnos: to belong to a definite ethnos ought not to be the condition for possessing citizenship. If the condition for possessing a citizenship depends on belonging to a definite ethnos, all the inhabitants of a country not belonging to the definite ethnos are automatically excluded from citizenship. This kind of condition for possessing the citizenship of a country is steadily being used to bring about the exclusion of definite inhabitants and groups of inhabitants, for instance, the exclusion of all the inhabitants that have been compelled to or are compelled to migrate to a country. Benhabib strongly differentiates between the concepts of ethnos and of demos as criteria for the possession of the citizenship: Whereas the concept of ethnos represents a closed concept, the concept demos represents a completely different conception as regards the conditions for membership: demos is a flexible concept, since demos can always be modified by political decisions. Benhabib is particularly firm when it comes to all the structures establishing the right to citizenship on belonging to an ethnos; she is likewise firm as to all the structures excluding certain inhabitants of a country from the right to citizenship because these inhabitants belong to a culture which is different from the culture of the majority of a country: a democratic institution may not afford to forever exclude inhabitants from acquiring citizenship; every kind of such an exclusion is, in the opinion of Benhabib, simply not compatible with a democratic order.
To conclude, I believe it should be noted that Benhabib endorses a kind of flexible, dynamic interpretation of the concept of culture: this means that cultures do not constitute unchangeable patterns; cultures are structures continuously changing: they are dynamic patterns. Moreover, Benhabib considers all individuals as not being prisoners of their own culture; Benhabib does not accept concepts like culture essentialism or culture reductions, as if individuals essentially belonged to only a culture and as if individuals could be reduced to only a culture: individuals possess cultures, they are not possessed by them. All individuals maintain, in the opinion of Benhabib, autonomy in relation to their own culture: individuals are more than just a culture.