Constitutional Hermeneutics, Intersubjectivity, and Human Rights

Abstract

The article, in dialogue with Michel Rosenfeld, Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, and Miroslav Milovic, aims, based on modern subjectivity, to discuss why we are still unable to guarantee human rights to all constitutional subjects. Starting from a critique of the centrality of modern subjectivity and of the limits of contemporary legal and political rationality, the paper analyzes the difficulties surrounding the effective inclusion of differences within constitutional democracies. The study problematizes the limits of constitutional hermeneutics, communicative rationality, and modern institutional structures in light of the persistence of politically excluded subjects or subjects reduced to the condition of bare life. It ultimately argues that the realization of human rights depends not only on Law, but above all on a radical democratization of Politics capable of recognizing the political dignity and belonging of all subjects within the political community.