Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment

by Francis Fukuyama

Two types of argument underpin this school. The first is economic and functional, saying that problems today are global in scope and therefore need to be addressed globally. Such issues range from trade and investment to counterterrorism, the environment, infectious diseases, narcotics, human trafficking, and many others. Nations and national identities are potential obstacles to international cooperation and need to be gradually superseded by a new layer of transnational rules and organizations. The second strand of argument is more theoretical and comes out of international human rights law. Liberal democracies are built on a premise of universal human equality, and that equality does not begin or end at national borders. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights became the basis for a growing body of international law that asserted that rights are inherent in all human beings and need to be respected by all nations.12 As human rights law has evolved, so have the obligations of states not just to their own citizens, but to immigrants and refugees as well. Some advocates have even posited a universal right to migrate.13