Against the colonial hiper-constitution of fundamental rights. In search of a shared intercultural core

Abstract

The essay criticises legal ‘Westernism’, and challenges the universalistic approach to public/constitutional law based on fundamental/human rights. To this extent, it highlights how globalisation harshly confronts social, cultural, political, economic, and legal pluralism. After analysing common elements among different cultures and traditions, it suggests an alternative constitutional/transnational “hard core”. The proposed new “hard-core” focuses on different values, i.e. community, solidarity, and fraternité as the funding elements of Western, as well as Eastern and Southern, legal traditions. In so doing, the essay rejects the ‘orientalist’ approach based on an allegedly Western Grundnorm, and avoids the theoretical —and potentially pragmatic— imperialism of fundamental/human rights and dignity.