A new history of human rights, from the origins to our days: the foundations of human rights are identified, according to a completely innovative approach, in epochs and cultures much more ancient in comparison to the Western one. The history of human rights is articulated in the phases of the positivization, of the generalization, subdivided in three stages, corresponding, respectively, to the epoch of the Declarations, of the codifications and of the progressive costituzionalization of fundamental rights, accompanied by a third phase of internazionalization-universalization of the rights and completed by the fourth phase of the globalization of human rights, that become cosmopolitical in the Kantian sense of the term. The different phases of development of human rights are analyzed in connection with a large number of doctrinal positions that have accompanied their evolution. The introductory essay precedes the systematization of the most remarkable international instruments for the protection of human rights.
