Theory of Fundamental Rights

The course will be structured in two units of ten classes each.
The first unit will consider fundamental rights as an institution of positive law, combining historical and theoretic lectures. The historical lecture will address the following topics: the shift from natural law theories to rights theories; the first charters of rights, from the Magna Charta to the French Declaration of 1789; the process of rights' posivitization; the XIX century criticism of the idea of natural rights; the emerging of women's and workers' rights, the gradual increase both of the number of holders of fundamental rights and of the number of those rights; the constitutionalizing and internationalizing of fundamental rights. The theoretic lectures will address the following topics: the concept of fundamental rights in relation to the broader category of individual rights; the function of fundamental rights in the constitutional State; the link between fundamental rights and democracy; conflicts between fundamental rights and strategies for the resolution of those conflicts; the relation between fundamental rights, liberalism and equality.
The second unit will address the problem of the justification of fundamental rights and other issues central in the contemporary debate for the perspective of fundamental rights, including: the fundamental right to personal sovereignty; the link between liberty rights and personal security; the foundation and limits of the freedoms of speech and of the press; the relation between liberty of conscience, secularism, tolerance and neutrality; the status of the right to immigrate among fundamental rights; the fundamental rights of minority cultures; the tensions between women's rights and cultural rights.

A bibliography in English on the topics of the course will be provided on request to non-attending students who want to take the final exam in English.