With his dissertation in 1984, Ludger Kühnhardt wrote the first comprehensive study that analyzed the humanly distressing problem of flight and displacement as a world order problem from a historical and political science perspective. For his habilitation thesis, which was accepted by the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn in 1987, Kühnhardt expanded the view to the historical-ideological contexts and contradictions of universal human rights. His cultural and regional scientific comparative studies created a standard work.