The concept of the fourth generation of human rights: fact or perspective of scientific discourse

Abstract

Scholars from different countries and legal schools pay attention to substantiating the understanding of the fourth generation of human rights and developing a classification of human rights belonging to this generation. At the same time, differences in the national regulation of fourth-generation human rights and the lack of their consistent recognition by subjects of international law have led to the fact that none of the proposed concepts and classifications has received universal recognition. The purpose of the article is to identify the theoretical and applied problems which hinder the development and general recognition of a unified understanding of the fourth generation of human rights, and to design the solution proposals. Achievement of the research purpose necessitated the use of various methods of scientific knowledge, among which the most important are: dialectical method; historical and legal method; comparative method; systemic and structural method; method of analysis; method of synthesis; hermeneutical method; and method of generalisation. The study briefly describes the main stages of the genesis of international legal regulation of relations in the field of human rights, the essence of the scientific classification of the three generations of human rights, and the doctrinal approaches to understanding the fourth generation of human rights. Based on the results of the analysis, the author proposes to: reconsider the historical dating of the emergence of human rights generations; expand the source base of scientific research, based on which scholars substantiate their own, usually Eurocentric, understanding of the fourth generation of human rights; intensify comprehensive comparative studies with a view to distinguishing between human rights, the emergence and implementation of which became possible in the late twentieth – first quarter of the twenty-first century due to the development of scientific and technological progress in the field of biology, medicine and technology.