Political Autonomy, Federalisation and Statutary Declaration of Rights

Abstract

There exists today a considerable output of declarations of rights in terms both of quantity and territorial extension. Along with general declarations of rights, the most relevant in recent times being the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Nice, 2000), there has been a proliferation of declarations of a sectorial type, amongst others, the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (Oviedo, 2005) or the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (New York, 2006), which join a long list of others regarding the widest possible variety of subjects (childhood, gender, mental health, amongst others). On a territorial level, to the classic declarations of rights contained in the Constitutions have been added not only those with an international or European scope but also those of a regional or internal nature, within a federal or autonomous State, creating a multilevel system of guarantee of rights. This phenomenon of heterogeneity of rights and guarantees has been offset by an increasingly intense homogenisation of the contents of rights, via their interpretation by international courts, especially the European Court for Human Rights, and the constitutional courts. Further contributing to this confluence is an element of emulation amongst the advocates of declarations of rights. In short, globalisation cohabits with decentralisation and equality with difference. In this context, the new Statutes of some Autonomous Communities challenged a specific declaration of rights for the territory in question, and the question posed is both legal and political, with regard not only to the possibility of its existence and its constitutional compatibility but also to its appropriateness insofar as it may be a factor of confrontation and inequality between citizens instead of an instrument of integration.