Making Human Rights Real

Book excerpt: The most important characteristics of human rights are enumerated in a clear and concise discussion that analyzes the problem of making human rights real, not just hypothetical, worldwide. Building on definitions of human rights used by the United Nations and other international bodies, and without being sidetracked by nettlesome discussions of specific troubling cases of rights abuses, the author describes the main characteristics of the system of human rights. He focuses on universality, interdependence, differences between types of rights, absolute or limited rights, the subjects of rights (individuals or groups) and the links between rights and the judicial system and between rights and democracy. He then discusses some of the instruments we can use to promote respect for human rights, the means by which we might make these rights real for a greater portion of humanity. Along the way, he analyzes some of the related controversies regarding sovereignty versus international intervention, globalization and questions of cultural imperialism as they bear upon human rights. When do we have a right to impose rights or to defend ourselves from intervention? This systematic discussion presents a complex and difficult topic in an understandable framework accessible to the general public, and will stand as a useful foundation for readings of more specialized scientific, legal and philosophical works. Where most human rights books for the nonspecialist focus on specific instances of rights abuses, this work provides a more general approach focused on the logic in the system of human rights.