Identity as Self-Assertion. The Age of Rights and the Challenges of Postmodernity

The theme of rights is so absolutely central to legal-philosophical reflection that when the term 'age of rights' is being used to refer to the period coinciding with the consolidation of contemporary democratic regimes, it means that human rights, democracy, and peace are three necessary moments of the same historical movement: without recognised and effectively protected human rights, there is no democracy; without democracy, there are no minimal conditions for the peaceful resolution of conflicts…