The concept of “human rights” has not always existed, but has gradually taken shape over the course of the history of Western legal culture. Certain milestones marked decisive moments in this process, such as the adoption of the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen by the French National Assembly on 26 August 1789, or the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations on 10 December 1948. Over time, the content of universal and inalienable rights has evolved, while their political relevance has at times been expanded and at others sharply curtailed. If, in the final decades of the twentieth century, human rights progressively became a standard element of the grammar of international politics, their violations, in terms of effectiveness, remain to this day as widespread as they are dramatic.
Within this context, the project “TAHR – Thinking and Acting on Human Rights. An Ongoing History” aims to reflect critically not only on the meaning of this category of fundamental rights, but also on its multiple evolutions and the crises that have shaped its historical trajectory, adopting in particular the perspective of women. The guiding question is the one that many feminist authors have posed and reiterated over the past two and a half centuries: are women human? And, consequently, are women’s rights part of human rights?
By combining different disciplinary perspectives—including human rights theory, philosophy of law, and philosophy of language—the teaching staff will also experiment with new interpretative approaches, with the aim of promoting innovative teaching on issues of profound social relevance.