The Dangerous Illusion of a “National Path” to Human Rights

What ‘lessons’ have States and civil society learnt in almost two years of global pandemic? With dismay, we must recognise that the realisation of how individuals, societies, States and our own planet Earth are fragile and vulnerable has above all promoted isolationist, nationalist and imperialistic feelings and practices. States run the risk of fooling themselves with the illusion that their traditional nationalist arsenal has once again turned to be the only viable response to the challenges of modern world: from national security to energy access; from fighting climate change to protecting the population from financial risk and inflation. One symptom of the fact that we live through a centrifugal phase in conceiving and practicing multilateralism can be seen when, even in the pursuit of universal human rights, each community emphasises its own peculiar way (Sonderweg) to achieve that goal; a distinct national path rooted in a nation’s incomparable history or anchored in its own unique political projects. The tendency to overemphasise national peculiarities shows a weakening of confidence in the mechanisms of multilateralism, even when this is cloaked in good intentions and uses flawless arguments such as the call for subsidiarity and the need for a ‘vernacularisation’ of rights.