Epistemological foundations and critical theorization of emerging human rights
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20983/anuariodcispp.2025.03Keywords:
Emerging rights, Epistemology, Human dignity, Technological transformation, VulnerabilityAbstract
The article examines the profound transformations generated by digitalization, neurotechnology, algorithmic governance, and ecological destabilization, arguing that these changes expose novel forms of vulnerability that classical human rights frameworks cannot fully address. The central problem identified is the absence of an epistemological system capable of determining when a new moral or technological claim legitimately qualifies as a human right, a gap that has led to conceptual inflation, redundancy, and normative fragmentation. The purpose of the study is to construct a rigorous epistemological foundation that clarifies the criteria, limits, and justificatory requirements for recognizing emerging rights in contemporary constitutional and international law. Methodologically, the article develops a conceptual and analytical reconstruction grounded in human rights theory, legal philosophy, and critical constitutionalism. It reconstructs the genealogy of emerging rights, analyzes new ontologies of vulnerability, and systematizes epistemic criteria identified throughout the scholarly literature. This is complemented by an examination of technological and ecological transformations, drawing from interdisciplinary fields such as neuroethics, digital governance, and environmental theory. The study finds that emerging rights are justified only when technological or ecological changes generate qualitatively new harms that cannot be subsumed under existing rights categories. Examples identified include mental privacy, cognitive liberty, algorithmic explainability, and rights of nature each addressing vulnerabilities that classical rights frameworks cannot protect without conceptual distortion. The results also show that emerging rights require a reconfiguration of duty-bearers, extending obligations beyond the state to corporations, artificial intelligence developers, neurotechnology producers, and ecological actors. The article concludes that an integrated epistemology is indispensable for ensuring that rights recognition remains principled and responsive to twenty-first-century transformations. By offering a disciplined model for determining when new rights are necessary, the study strengthens legal coherence, protects human dignity, and prevents normative inflation.
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