Techne, politics, human rights : millennium-eve considerations on some aspects of globalization

Abstract

Globalization is changing the paradigms of world politics. The principles of "sovereignty" and nation-state are undergoing a crisis and this entails remarkable consequences oil human rights policies. The absence of any congruence and symmetry between the subject who takes the decision and the frame of effect of the same decision. is evident, for example. Such a situation may be described as a crisis of the primacy of politics with the advent of the supremacy of techne. Should such a crisis materialize, this would mean the end of any human rights policy. We should therefore understand the evolution and fate of techne and to what extent politics and the fate of man are tied to the theoretical and juridical apparatus of the nation-state and to the principle of sovereignty. This is both a political and philosophical problem whose solution requires an investigation of the roots of western thought. In effect, the globalization process, understood as the present manifestation of the evolution of techne, could bring about - contrary to the worst expectations - a weakening of the principle of territorial jurisdiction and the strengthening of the principle of "responsibility". The latter could open the doors for a new human rights policy: one which is no longer tied to the model of the national state and no longer limited by the principle of sovereignty.