The article moves from a historical analysis of the conception of human rights development, connected to particular social and cultural frameworks. The increasing awarness of the human rights every person must be entitled to and the problem connected to their arbitrary multiplication force us to reflect about the foundamentals of rights themselves. If contractualism leads to a juspositivistic conception that considers rights as the result of a mere agreement, jusnaturalism draws our attention on the concept of human nature, holder of inalienable rights, and on that of natural law, not to be understood in the essentialist way, but in a practical and dynamic perspective, capable to recognize the unchanging proper elements of every individual and to understand them in changing contests.
(author: Gianluca Guerzoni)