Note on the Benefits Justification of the Gasoline Tax

The Law and Politics of International Cultural Rights: E. Stamatopoulou, Cultural Rights in International Law; F. Francioni and M. Scheinin (eds.), Cultural Human Rights

“…Stamatopoulou, like some of the contributors to Cultural Human Rights , off ers a universal account of the nature and purpose of cultural rights in international law, grounding their legal signifi cance on the universal value of participation in cultural life, Tore Lindholm, in his essay, "Th e Cross-Cultural Legitimacy of Universal Human Rights", defends a more nuanced approach, one that rests on a plural justifi cation of human rights that neither presupposes nor implies acceptance of cultural relativism. 64 Echoing Rawls' conception of an "overlapping consensus", 65 Lindholm argues that human rights normatively transcend debates between universalism and relativism to the extent that "competent and authoritative adherents of each of a set of rivaling normative traditions reasonably hold universally applicable human rights to be … arguably well-grounded in each particular normative tradition including their own". 66 Other contributors retreat to the safety of the positivistic platform that Stamatopoulou decries, where state consent provides the normative foundation of human rights in international law.…”