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Human Rights in Croatian Emigrant Thought (1945–1990)
Ivan Čulo
; Institut Fontes Sapientiae
Sažetak
The concept of ‘human rights’ played a key role in ethics and political philosophy, law and politics, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, and every serious discussion on contemporarity contained at least one reference to human rights. Being the most translated and influential legal act of our time, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, establishing the so-called modern human rights by which every natural person becomes a subject of international law. This act finally made a major shift away from the positivist legal concept of the ‘rights of man,’ which was exclusively in the domain of each individual state.
The paper investigates and evaluates the approach of Croatian emigrant thinkers on human rights from the preparation and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights until 1990. Former Yugoslavia was one of the few world states that did not adopt the Declaration. It was not until 2008 that the Universal Declaration of 1948 saw its official translation into Croatian in the modern Republic of Croatia.
The paper outlines the characteristics, position, and circumstances of the Croatian emigration and the official Yugoslav approach to human rights. The analysis of Croatian emigrant thought has been conducted for four periods: 1. 1945–1960, 2. 1961–1970, 3. 1971–1980, 4. 1981–1990.
Human rights, as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are based on the ideas of personalism, natural-law conception, universalism, and solidarity, and their acceptance, development or degeneration, depending on the approach, manifest in their oppositions: individualism, legal positivism, cosmopolitanism and egoism. Therefore, the problem of understanding the foundation, content, scope and purpose of human rights comes to the fore in both the communist and the liberal understanding of the concept.
This problem had already been pointed out by Croatian emigrants in the late 1940s and during the 1950s. Hijacint Eterović, Bonifacije Perović, and Mirko Meheš systematically analyzed the Universal Declaration, considering it not only a great achievement in understanding the human being as a ‘person,’ but also as a significant step forward for international law. Although they unreservedly accepted the Universal Declaration and its personalist foundations, they still critically looked upon some of its solutions and shortcomings. They considered the context of acceptance, closeness and distance of the Universal Declaration in relation to the policies, ideologies, philosophies, and worldviews of the time. The texts of Eterović and Perović are the earliest thoughtful approaches to the issue of human rights by Croatian authors, and they are characterized by a distinct personalistic approach.
In the 1960s, Branko Martin Pešelj made a valuable contribution to the study of human rights in socialist constitutions, and Gvido Saganić and Jure Petričević systematically followed all events at the international level during the 1970s and 1980s, with an aim to draw attention to human rights violations in Yugoslavia. In the 1980s, a new dimension of the understanding of human rights, from the political right, was presented by Tomislav Sunić. For decades, Kvirin Vasilj, Franjo Nevistić, and Bogdan Radica advocated the defence of human rights for individuals and peoples.
The study and practice of human rights in the Croatian context began and lasted longer in emigration than in the homeland. Although frequently unfoundedly stigmatized as the ‘enemies of the state’ and supporters of the ‘NDH regime,’ Croatian emigrants advocated various theories, ideas and approaches to human rights in their works and emphasized the values of democracy and pluralism. Not only was this not inherent in the Yugoslav approach, but it was also explicitly forbidden. Therefore, the thought of Croatian emigrants deserves a proper place in the Croatian tradition of thinking on human rights.
Ključne riječi
Croatian emigrant thinkers; Yugoslav approach to human rights; Universal Declaration of Human Rights; human rights; philosophy of law; Hijacint Eterović; Bonifacije Perović; Mirko Meheš; Branko Martin Pešelj; Jure Petričević; Bogdan Radica; Kvirin Vasilj; Franjo Nevistić; Gvido Saganić; Tomislav Sunić
Hrčak ID:
254879
URI
Datum izdavanja:
20.12.2020.
Posjeta: 3.413 *