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Abstract A strong tension can currently be noticed between the main unifying tendencies of globalization and its fragmenting factors. In this context the universalist rhetoric of human rights, which distinguishes the supposed particularism of non-Western cultures from the values of Western culture, would deny the autonomy of the former. When Western cosmopolitism is criticized, the West sees it as a form of justification for authoritarianism, or as the expression of a voluntary servitude to oppressive traditions. As a matter of fact the war in Iraq has durably de-legitimized the prescriptive message concerning universal human rights, showing clearly that “humanitarian wars” are a kind of neo-imperialism.