Human rights, real and supposed

Abstract

This chapter argues that a philosophically respectable concept of human rights has been muddied, obscured, and debilitated by an attempt to incorporate into it specific rights of a different logical category. The traditional human rights are political and civil rights such as the right to life, liberty and a fair trial. The political objection is that the circulation of a confused notion of human rights hinders the effective protection of what are correctly seen as human rights. At the inaugural meeting of the Economic and Social Council of the UN in May 1946, a Commission on Human Rights was appointed to submit to the General Assembly recommendations and reports regarding an 'International Bill of Rights'. A demand for the extension of rights within a political society is often confused with the demand for human rights.

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