State’s Role in Defending Peace, Democracy & Human Rights
Item 14: The State and the Defense of Peace, Democratic Values, and Human Rights
1. The Legitimacy of State Action
In the exercise of citizenship, people who are granted the rule of law are entitled to promote social cohesion. It is possible to get its institutions to work for the defense of peace, democratic values, and human rights.
Legitimacy is equivalent to the valid procedure for the production of law; legitimacy is the validity of laws enacted to achieve the outlined purposes. These rights and values are the foundation of the legitimacy of the rule of law in carrying out its duties. Functions that can be summarized:
- Empirical (in practice): Performed by all (citizens, judges, governors, and legislators).
- Legal: Acting within the law, under the rule of law and legality.
- Ethical (moral): Acting on legality and the legitimacy it gives to the defense of social peace, the values of democracy, and human rights.
Spain and the rule of law must act under the Constitution of 1978:
- Recognizing its legitimacy through the ethical requirements of human rights.
- Establishing a basic principle essential to the legal system of laws, such as the moral demands that human rights provide.
- Promoting the realization of human rights and values.
- Advocating, defending, or relying actively and positively.
- Ensuring the safety aspects of all the values and rights.
- Protecting them against any risk or inconvenience.
- Consolidating the achievements.
- Collaborating with society, with other states, and with other national and international institutions.
2. Defense of Peace
Peace and a just order warrant coexistence that facilitates the progress and prosperity of the people. Peace flows from justice, and justice is to promote and seek friendship between the people of the villages.
As such, peace is:
- A moral duty (to pursue in good conscience imperatively).
- A core value of the legal system (law).
- A guiding principle of politics (institutional level).
- A condition of socio-economic development (social level).
Kant’s “Perpetual Peace” states that only the legal guarantee, i.e., the enactment of laws for peace, can secure it.
3. Defense of Democratic Values
Freedom, equality, justice, respect for law, and democratic tolerance are values that make life possible, and therefore require respect from all citizens and all institutions because ceasing to be ideal is an ongoing task. Disrespect for these values is a fact, but because these values are our own right, we all have a moral obligation or duty—ethics and civic work—for them.
Several works exist about freedom (see authors in bold and underlined).
4. Defense of Human Rights
The recognition, protection, and promotion of Human Rights as an obligation of effort for all peoples and nations of the world are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of the UN General Assembly in December 1948.
The preamble to the UDHR is reasonable, as it establishes and specifies the duty of realization to any rule of law. And in Article 30, the state’s action is subject to this unconditional declaration.