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2022[UN SDGs and Human Rights] KIM Hyungwan Full Paper

18 Oct 2022
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With a new social contract, A sustainable transition beyond the limits of the civil rights system


KIM Hyungwan  Head of Korea Human Rights Policy Institute


Today, we are facing four major crises represented by the ‘crisis of democracy and politics’, the ‘crisis of climate and environment’, the ‘crisis of mass infectious diseases’ and the ‘crisis of economic and social polarization’. The essence of these four great crises is, in a word, a crisis of human dignity, that is, a crisis of human rights. More precisely, it is a ‘crisis of the civil rights system’. It is not just a temporary crisis, but a catastrophic crisis of the annihilation of the human community. Is this crisis avoidable or surmountable? 



In the midst of ‘coexistence’ with countless beings in the world, a ‘transitional project’ in which humans exist as a part of the coexistence is urgent. Human dignity must be guaranteed only within the limits of natural rights. Not only humans, but also air and water, land and mountains, rivers and seas, as well as all living things on the earth, including birds, trees, insects, and grasses in the sky, and all resources under the ground must be recognized and guaranteed with their own dignity. Human dignity is recognized and exists only in the natural rights system in which the order of coexistence called harmony and balance is implemented beyond the predatory (market-oriented) citizenship system composed of anthropocentrism as the cause.

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WHRCF SECRETARIAT
1-2F, 5, Jungang-ro 196beon-gil, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61475, South Korea
Tel: +82-62-226-2734
Fax: +82-62-226-2731
E-mail: whrcf@gic.or.kr
Copyright WHRCF All rights reserved.