Moralité internationale et hégémonie : les droits humains au 20e siècle
Two conceptions of morality prevail in the analysis of current moral issues in international relations: the morality of states and the cosmopolitan morality. The first recognises the states as the fundamental units of the international system and the second, the individuals. In this thesis, we develop an alternative conception of morality: the moral hegemonic discourse approach. Our aim is to demonstrate that this perspective is better suited to explaining and understanding morality in the contemporary world. This allows us to emphasise the progression of a dominant moral discourse as well as the role of those who contributed to its development.  In order to critically analyse the dominant history of the modern discourse of rights we first identified two of its fundamental characteristics: individualism and universalism. We then focused on their reproduction over time. To this end, the main irregularities of their history are exposed over the centuries and at two different points in the 20th century.  Following these two steps, we observe that despite its opponents, a certain conception of the rights discourse internationalised itself in the aftermath of the Second World War. Second, a close study of the debates surrounding the writing of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948 and of the Vienna Conference in 1993 shows that this conception of rights maintained its hegemonic position at the international level.  Therefore, we conclude on the validity of the moral hegemonic discourse approach to understand the significance of the rights discourse at the international level.
Discours Human rights International Morality Hegemony Sovereignty Normative theories