National and International Value systems, Fundamental Human Rights and Law

Izvleček

This paper argues that national and international value systems

derive from common and shared values such as dignity, equality

and freedom. It argues that these values substantiate observance

fundamental human rights. There are different ways how to justify

the observance of fundamental human rights, not only by

states and corporations, but by any actor in a given society. Laws

represent the codification of society’s moral views. All individual

and communities have morality, a basic sense of right or work

concerning particular activities. The validity of any national legal

order reposes upon fundamental principles of dignity, equality

and freedom, which are enshrined in the many rules in national

legal orders, but essentially belong to categories of ethics, morality,

justice and fairness. Fundamental human rights as rules of national

and international law belong concurrently to morality and

ethics, and must have a greater chance to be observed. Notably,

every legal rule derives from ideological, political or moral basis.

Similarly, it is observed that the universal values and fundamental

human rights overlap and that such an overlapping of values

and fundamental human rights captures the fundamental unity

between the language of law and that of morality. It is argued that

law is the concept of foremost moral principles that is common to

all participants in the international community and, as is generally

posited, is recognisable by human reason alone. Fundamental

human rights norms are part of that reason. In sum, the national

and international value systems derive from fundamental values

common to all communities in the world. These communities arguably

share a consensus about these fundamental values.