The constitutional function of human rights

Abstract

Some convergent tendencies, leaving positive effects of modernisation especially in the post-Second World War era, are stirring up both international law as well as constitutional law; or, as used to be stated at the turn of the century, both the "internal" and the "external" laws of the state. They emerge from two important events in this century's history. With F.D Roosevelt's "Charter at Four Liberties" (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear and freedom from need), in 1941, and the staunch determination of the United States, which overcoming the formalism of continental jurists wanted a Statute which went down in history as the Nuremberg Tribunal against Nazi crimes, the foundation was laid for a new international legal system. The attempt to put the German Emperor William II to trial, on which W. Wilson disagreed with the European Allies, met obstacles dictated not only by politics but also by an outdated vision of the very nature of international law.