The Moral Reality of Human Rights

Abstract

Abstract The elevation of the discourse of human rights in recent times to the status of an ethical lingua franca has fueled an unruly proliferation of incompatible or often just incredible rights claims. If human rights are not to fall victim to their own popularity, some principled way of distinguishing the genuine articles from the presumed spate of counterfeits is required. It is no answer to invoke the ‘human rights’ proclaimed as such in international treaties and declarations. To begin with, they lack the requisite universality: the instruments in which they are set out are often not legally binding and even those that are binding are not subscribed to by all states (or are subscribed to by many states subject to eviscerating reservations).

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