Žmogaus teisių ir valstybės suvereniteto dermė Lietuvos nacionalinėje žmogaus teisių politikoje ; Human Rights Versus State Sovereignty in the Lithuanian National Human Rights Policy

Abstract

After regaining its independence in 1990, Lithuania has demonstrated the will to establish the universal human rights standards in the country as soon as possible. However, taking into account the country's policy in the later years of independence, it's not clear whose interests – state of individual – are more important and how these concepts coexist in the framework of Lithuanian human rights policy. The aim of the research is to examine wherever state sovereignty and human rights are (in)compatible with each other in the policy-making context of Lithuanian human rights policy. Aiming to achieve the above mentioned aim the Lithuanian human rights policy-making context, factors affecting this policy, national legal basis on human rights, fourteen programmes of the Government through the prism of human rights are analyzed. In conducting the research the following research methods were used: documents and legal acts analysis, semi-structured interview, as well as comparative analysis. Empirical research data indicates that Lithuanian human rights policy could be described as fragmented, lacking integrity and balanced attention to all human rights; strongly expressed social economical dimension the other key feature of this policy. In the context of such policy the relation between the human rights and state sovereignty is rather mixed. On the one hand, the external sovereignty is compatible with human rights and freedoms; they complement each other. Meanwhile the supremacy of state's interests over the individual rights in the context of internal policy gives the basis to claim that human rights are not compatible with internal state sovereignty and state sovereignty which reflects the interests of state is a higher value in the internal policy. The empirical data also indicates that human rights and internal state sovereignty are compatible with each other when the interests of state include the duty to protect the human rights.