ABSTRACT
The recognition and protection of human rights at the international level has taken on an increased importance in recent years, in legal discourse as in public debate. The empowering nature of this discourse has led to an accumulation of competing rights claims, with ever-wider scope and application. The Pinochet case and the justifications for intervention in Kosovo are high-profile examples of how the importance of the notion of the protection of rights and their promotion has come to symbolize the present Zeitgeist of legal and political discourse. Indeed, one could legitimately ask if human rights have become the principle of the age.
