Menschenrechte und Menschenpflichten

'Human Rights and Human Duties. Key Terms for a Compassionate Society'The current political debate on refugees raises urgent questions about a new social code of conduct. To formulate such, three aspects need to be considered: firstly, the political implementation of human rights as a historical accomplishment; secondly, a social perspective on this legal protection based on age-old values such as empathy and solidarity and finally, a code of rules facilitating fair and respectful coexistence of locals and immigrants. For this set of rules, which is to be recognised as a collective commitment beyond cultural differences, Aleida Assmann, winner of the Peace Prize of the German Booktrade 2018, proposes the term 'human duties'. She retraces its five thousand-year-long history and updates it for the present.