The Economic Context of the Development of the Concept of Human Rights: Implications for Current Human Rights Issues

This article examines how the progress of capitalist economy has developed and changed the concept of human rights. It analyzes the discord between the present world economic system and the international legal and political system in the age of globalization, and presents some requirements for the substantial and feasible internationalization of human rights. The concept of human rights has been conditioned by the development of the capitalist economy. The process of human rights development from the legal and political to the social and economic was in parallel with the process of the capitalist development from laissez-faire to state-interventionism. The internationalization of human rights today is based on the globalization of the capitalist economy. Considering the correlation between human rights and the economic context, international cooperation in human rights issues and the legitimization of humanitarian intervention need to resolve the disarticulation between the principles of world economy and the present international legal and political system.