Generations of Human Rights in the Context of the Concept of Solidarity

Abstract

Introduction: the liberal perception of freedom as a contradiction between its negative and positive aspects formed the basis for dividing human rights into generations. Personal and some political rights, on the one hand, and socio-economic rights, on the other hand, are not divided simply into generations, but into levels in terms of their importance for individual freedom. The constitutional legal framework for such classification is based on the opposition between the principles of the rule-of-law state and the social (welfare) state. Purpose: to identify patterns which could allow asserting the need to revise the constitutional legal concept of the generations of human rights in the context of the contemporary view of the relationship between the principles of the “rule-of-law state” and the “social state,” negative and positive freedom, and the constitutional theory of solidarity. Methods: the study is based on general scientific methods, including analysis, synthesis, comparison, description, induction, and deduction, as well as specific scientific methods, including historical legal, comparative legal, formal legal methods, and legal modeling. Results: the division of human rights into generations is based on the approach according to which the first and second generations correspond to negative and positive freedom, respectively. Other criteria for this classification have been seriously criticized in science and refuted by the practice of senior judicial authorities. Nevertheless, constitutional innovations introduced in 2020 essentially eliminate the contradictions between the rule-of-law state and the social state, while the constitutionally proclaimed solidarity ensures the unity of negative and positive freedoms and their interdependence. Conclusions: any human right is the constitutional legal expression of individual freedom, which always has a negative (passive) and positive (active) component. The division of human rights into generations does not correspond to the modern constitutional legal concepts of individual freedom and the system of human rights. Each of the human rights, including “first-generation rights,” is a projection of negative and positive freedom and corresponds to the category “dignified life.”