Human rights
Human rights refers to the
concept of human beings as
having universal natural rights, or
status, regardless of legal jurisdiction or other localizing factors,
such as ethnicity, nationality, and sex.
As is evident in the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, human rights, at least in the post-war
period, are conceptualized as based on inherent human dignity, retaining their universal and
inalienable character.
The existence, validity and the content of human rights
continue to be the subject to debate in philosophy and political science. Legally, human rights are
defined in international law
and covenants, and further, in the domestic laws of many states. However, for many
people the doctrine of human rights goes beyond law and
forms a fundamental moral basis for regulating the contemporary geo-political order. For them, they are democratic ideals.
The idea of human rights descended from that of natural rights; some recognize no difference
between the two and regard both as labels for the same thing while others
choose to keep the terms separate to eliminate association with some features
traditionally associated with natural rights
Types
Human rights are sometimes divided into negative and
positive rights. Negative human rights, which follow mainly from
the Anglo-American legal tradition, denote actions that a government should not
take. These are codified in the Scottish Claim of Right, the English Bill of Rights
the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the United States
Bill of Rights and include right to life and security of person;
freedom from slavery; equality before the law and due process under the rule of law; freedom of movement; and freedoms
of speech, religion, assembly, and
the right to bear arms
for collective and individual defense.
Positive human rights mainly follow from the Rousseauian Continental European
legal tradition and denote rights that the state is obliged to protect and
provide. Examples of such rights include: the rights to education, to a
livelihood, to legal equality. Positive rights have been codified in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in many 20th-century constitutions.
Another categorization, offered by Karel Vasak, is that there are three generations
of human rights: first-generation civil and political rights
(right to life and political participation), second-generation economic, social
and cultural rights (right to subsistence) and third-generation solidarity
rights (right to peace, right to clean environment). Out of these generations,
the third generation is the most debated and lacks both legal and political
recognition. Some theorists discredit these divisions by claiming that rights
are interconnected. Arguably, for example, basic education is necessary for the
right to political participation.
Justification
of human rights
Several theoretical approaches have been advanced to
explain how human rights become part of social expectations. The biological theory considers the comparative
reproductive advantage of human social behavior based on empathy and altruism in the context of natural selection. Other theories hold that
human rights codify moral behavior, which is a human, social product developed
by a process of biological and social evolution (associated with Hume) or as a sociological pattern of rule
setting (as in the sociological theory of law and the work of Weber). This approach includes the notion that
individuals in a society accept rules from legitimate authority in exchange for
security and economic advantage (as in Rawls).
On the other hand, natural law theories base human rights on
the “natural” moral order that derives from religious precepts such as common
understandings of justice and the belief that moral behavior is a set of
objectively valid prescriptions. Some have used religious texts such as the Bible
and Qur'an to support human rights arguments.
However, there are also more secular forms of natural law theory that
understand human rights as derivative of the notion of universal human dignity.
Yet others have attempted to construct an "interests theory"
defence of human rights. For example the
philosopher John Finnis argues
that human rights are justifiable on the grounds of their instrumental value in
creating the necessary conditions for human well-being. Some interest-theorists
also justify the duty to respect the rights of other individuals on grounds of
self-interest (rather than altruism or benevolence). Reciprocal recognition and
respect of rights ensures that one's own will be protected.
Ultimately, the term "human rights" is often
itself an appeal to a transcendent principle, not based on existing legal
concepts. The term "humanism" refers to
the developing doctrine of such universally applicable values. The term
"human rights" has replaced the term "natural rights" in popularity, because the
rights are less and less frequently seen as requiring natural law for their existence.[
