What are the main characteristics of rights, and which individuals or groups in a given society need them most

Development of rights

  In the last few centuries we have seen an explosion of rights. "Human rights'' seem to have multiplied endlessly.  Each individual is asserted to have a right to welfare, a right to self-esteem, a right to health care, creating a new breed of “positive” rights to be provided with things. Unfortunately, these rights often conflict with the older human rights that classical liberals like John Staurt Mills had fought for: the rights to life, liberty, and property (or the "pursuit of happiness''). Such classical liberal "negative'' rights do not conflict with each other, whereas "positive'' rights do. If my "right to health care'' conflicts with a doctor's "right to periodic holiday,'' which one wins out? Will the doctor be forced to do some thing that denies him his right?

As rights have increased and, increasingly, clashed with one another, traditional rights theory has been robbed of its very essence. The traditional liberal notion of rights run parallel to each other and therefore can never clash. The point of rights is to guide each indiviual as to which actions are permissible in order to avoid conflicts among individuals or groups and to allow each person his freedom to exist without unde influence from another.

This recent development means that the word "right'' has become a mere synonym for interest or benefit: whenever something is in my interest (say, receiving job seekers allowance or maternity leave), then I can claim a "right'' to it. But as interests can conflict, rights-as-synonyms-for-interests can conflict as well.

The question now arises, by what standards do we decide which right to sanction and which to prohibit? Conflicting claims are only settled when one party will yield to persuasion or force. This is a fundamental choice in human relationships--voluntary cooperation or forced cooperation.

An extreme example of forced cooperation: Nazi Germany claims that Jews are to be kept in concentration camps. German officers forced Jews at gunpoint onto trains destined for prison camps. Individual Jews had two options--comply with the Germans or resist and be shot.

A common example of forced cooperation: A Robber decides taking money from the local newsagent is easier than getting a job there. He could walk inside and try to persuade the Clerk to turn over the money in the cash register, but the Robber is smart. He brings a gun. Likewise, the Clerk can try to persuade Robber that he lacks a right to the store's money. But Collin is smart. He has a gun under the counter.

In situations like these one party must yield, or both parties must collide. But given a situation, and given a choice, who should we support? Who has a right to what? It is crucial to know why we would support a particular side in these situations. Only then can we say who actually has a right to their claim. Only then can we decide in situations where it is less clear who we should support. We must make a decision on the principles that will determine why in some cases we sanction claims that people assert and call those claims rights. We must also determine specifically why in other cases we don't sanction claims that people assert and call those claims crimes.

When people claim rights, the basic issue at stake is contained in the following principle: Every man has a property in his own person. Coming from the political philosophy of John Locke, this principle is an important starting point. Who owns you? Locke's answer to that basic question is that you own you. Again we have a conflict if every one has a right in himself then what is to stop a drug addict from using drugs or a prostitute from selling her body. The best answer to this dilemma is presented  by Joseph Raz  “ X has a right” if and only if  X can have rights, and, other things being equal, an aspect of X’s well being is a sufficient reason for holding some other person(s) under a duty.

Special groups

Now that we have looked at the origin and development of rights let us look at the second part of the question. In order to ensure the full protection of human rights for everyone, it can be necessary to focus activities and action on specific groups or around specific circumstances. Persons belonging to certain particularly vulnerable groups call for special attention. In most cases these special groups are minorites, we acknoledge the rights of minorities in order to protect some of their more urgent intrests, in doing so we  often go against ligitimate intrests of the majority, so in a way ethinic, cultural, reilgous,racial or sexual minorities end up with rights which are rights against a majority.

 When we talk about minority rights, wehter in morality or in law, we may have in mind one of two things. The first being that rights that we have even when when we are in minority. The rights of liberals to organise politicaly , or of lesbain women to sexual liberty, are of this sort. The fact that these groups have the right to enjoy their chosen way of life does not neceserally derive from membership in a social group, it drives from a urgent, but indiviuated interest. The freedom of political association or sexual liberty are valuable in parts because they form an important part of social interaction, but they are indivituated interests in as much as the indiviual’s stake is init self a sufficient enough  reason to hold others duty bound. These intrests command respect without reinforcement of numbers.

 In contrast, the second sort of rights is one that people only because they are members of a certain minority group. The rights of indians to have self governed reservations is one example; the value of being member of a group  is part of the ground of the right. Such rights exist because some of our most urgent interests lie not merely in indiviuated goods such as personal liberty and exclusive property but also in collective goods. These include things, such as clean air and national defence,that are public good in the ecomomists sense: they are inexcusable  and non-rival in consumption. If they are available for some, then there is no excuse to prevent others from having it, the quantity consumed by one person does not perceptibily limit the amount available to others.

Case studies

As exaplained above the sphere of rights has grown enormously in the last century,which leads to the presumption that now in the 21st century the problem of minority rights abuse is a thing of the past. This could not be more further from the truth lets us start by looking at the example of children rights. Children are oppressed in most parts of the world and there fore qualify as a special group which needs special attention. The youth today face unprecedented threats to their sexual and reproductive health and well-being because of the emergence of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, sexual abuse, forced prostitution, and early marriage. Gender inequalities which are common place in most third world countires place girls at a particular disadvantage in access to education and resources, and in their ability to choose when, with whom, and under what conditions they have sexual relations—a situation that is getting ever more desperate because of the growing HIV/AIDS pandemic. Despite these dangers, adolescents in many settings have little or no access to proper sexual health education and even basic education because the issues are socially, culturally, and politically sensitive. Another alarming example of abuse can be seen in the report published by Amnesty International which was launched in late June 2001. The report gave several documented examples of torture and ill-treatment in some 30 countries, including Uganda, Pakistan, Argentina, the United States and Russia. It most cases victims where subjected to, physical and sexual assaults, unnecessary medical or psychiatric treatment and in some cases victims where even forced to flee their own countries because of persecution, based purely on their sexual identity. The two examples stated above can be considered conterversial both have elements of sexuality. However if we look at the example of Slovenia where almost 18,000 people where denied their basic right of identity. All of them where stripped of their  residency rights and  they where removed  from population records most of them were nationals of other former Yugoslav republics. The constitutional court has decleared that these rights have to be restored which was met with stong public resistence. Initial results from the state electoral commission in which there was a 31% turnout showed that 94% of the people opposed the law, only 4% voted in favour, leaving a stalemate over what will happen next.  

 

 

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