Human Rights/Constitutional Rights and Practical Knowledge

In the context of modern global constitutionalism, the theoretical justification and practical adjudication of human rights and constitutional rights both at the national and international level are of great significance.

Do human rights exist, i.e., as moral rights? Is the fundamental status of human rights recognizable? In the circumstance of unjust positive law that outrageously interferes with human rights or that of discursive possibilities, how to justify the priority of human rights? Or is it the only way left to strike the balance between human rights and other requirements, such as democracy and legal certainty?

Furthermore, how could the various instances of constitutional rights, as positivistic transformations or concretizations of human rights, be optimally satisfied under circumstances of normative or empirical uncertainty of knowledge?

All these questions above imply the problem of practical knowledge. To solve this problem of practical knowledge, one may endorse various theoretical constructions, to mention here only:

(1) discourse theory and democratic constitutionalism (second-order claim to correctness, institutionalization of reason).

(2) the principles theory of constitutional rights and discretion in balancing.

(3) the explicative and existentialistic argumentation in favor of human rights, the naturalistic and anti-naturalistic strategies (e.g., by neo-Kantian legal philosophers, such as Gustav Radbruch), as well as the positivistic or non-positivistic approaches.

(4) the monistic or pluralistic relation between international human rights law and national constitutional law, possibly reconstructed by ways of formal principles (the combination model, the separation model, and the epistemic model, and so on), etc.

All these domains or approaches are only examples for our enquiring into practical knowledge of human rights and constitutional rights. If the ‘model of knowledge’ of one-right-answer on the one hand and the ‘model of decision’ on the other should eventually be unsuccessful, then is the ‘model of argumentation’ of human rights inevitably the last possible approach? Would the epistemic uncertainty for human rights then be eliminated once for all? The knowledge concerning human rights and constitutional rights is, hence, an issue that requires persistent debate.

Fresh ideas and other contributions in English language are welcome. Please send your abstract (max. 500 words) to us ([email protected]) before 15. April 2024.

Please note: Since the regular registration days end on 30. April, the deadline for personal submission to our SW is not 15. January (as the website showed), but 15. April 2024.

List of Invited Members (until 1. January 2024):

1. Prof. Dr. Hidehiko Adachi (Kanazawa University)

2. Prof. Dr. Carsten Bäcker (Universität Bayreuth)

3. Prof. Dr. Martin Borowski (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)

4. Lecturer Dr. Wei Feng (China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing)

5. Prof. Dr. Alexandre Travessoni Gomes Trivisonno (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais and Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte-MG)

6. Dr. Arnulfo Daniel Mateos Durán (Università degli Studi di Genova)

7. Dr. Po-Jung Su (Institutum Iurisprudentiae Academia Sinica, Taipei)