ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to examine the growth of human rights legalism, the consolidation of the human rights regime, the salience of the human rights discourse, the role of human rights in modern democracy, and the relation between citizenship and human rights. In the present paper, I focus on the theoretical foundations of human rights, the discursive functions of human rights, the grounds and extent of human rights, the practical purposes of human rights, and the normativity of human rights. pp. 160–165

Keywords: democracy, human rights, international legal system