ABSTRACT
Modernity, as opposed to premodernity, is often confused with the technological and scientific developments that make life so much easier nowadays. Under the influence of the Renaissance, scholastic philosophy and medieval Christianity were subjected to a philosophical climate and a desire for change. Political power and its legitimization during the Middle Ages were based on highly complicated political-theological doctrines. The Renaissance; the Reformation, with all its political and military consequences; and the unending process of urbanization have each made a considerable contribution to the crisis of legitimacy of the ruling authorities. The revolution that proclaimed the rights of man ended in massive human rights violations. The rights that belong to international law might be “primary rules of obligation,” but they lack “secondary rules to make, recognize or enforce primary rules.” The French Revolution sought to create a new, universal world that would be based on the principles of the liberal constitutional state.
