Justice and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies

Abstract

The concept of tolerance has ceased to play a relevant role in social relations since the worldwide recognition of fundamental rights and freedoms. However, the process of globalisation is generating new conflicts in our societies arising from the coexistence of a plurality of cultures with diverse and sometimes incompatible legal systems. This paper analyses the relationship between tolerance and fundamental rights to show that the two concepts neither exclude nor overlap.  Tolerance can act as a criterion for giving explicit meaning to certain rights when used to resolve conflicts in multicultural communities.