Drawing its strength from the UN Charter and UDHR, human rights ethics is a beacon of hope and a promise that requires continuous reaffirmation during these turbulent times. These two documents, with their unwavering faith in ‘fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,’ have shaped our understanding of human rights as global and universal ethics. However, this faith (...) is now being severely tested by four countercurrents: extremism, exclusionism, selectivism, and populism. These countercurrents pose significant and urgent human rights threats that activists, academics, and policymakers must confront by reasserting the basic core values of the UN Charter and UDHR. (shrink)

I. Three Basic rights. This book is about the moral minimum--about the lower limits on tolerable human conduct, individual and institutional.

The Justification of Basic Rights: A Discourse-Theoretical Approach In this paper, I suggest a discourse theory of basic legal rights that is superior to rival approaches, such as a will-based or an interest-based theory of rights. Basic rights are reciprocally and generally justifiable and binding claims on others (agents or institutions) that they should do (or refrain from doing) certain things determined by the content of these rights. We call these rights (...) basic because they define the status of persons as full members of a normative order in such a way that they provide protection from severe forms of legal, political and social domination. The very ground of these rights is the status of persons as free and equal normative authorities within the order they are subject to. In other words, these rights are grounded in a fundamental moral right to justification. (shrink)

Global Basic Rights brings together many of the most influential contemporary writers in political philosophy and international relations to explore some of the most challenging theoretical and practical questions provoked by Henry Shue's classic book Basic Rights.

An expanded and updated edition of a classic work on human rights and global justice Since its original publication, Basic Rights has proven increasingly influential to those working in political philosophy, human rights, global justice, and the ethics of international relations and foreign policy, particularly in debates regarding foreign policy’s role in alleviating global poverty. Henry Shue asks: Which human rights ought to be the first honored and the last sacrificed? Shue argues that subsistence (...) class='Hi'>rights, along with security rights and liberty rights, serve as the ground of all other human rights. This classic work, now available in a thoroughly updated fortieth-anniversary edition, includes a substantial new chapter by the author examining how the accelerating transformation of our climate progressively undermines the bases of subsistence like sufficient water, affordable food, and housing safe from forest-fires and sea-level rise. Climate change threatens basic rights. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how the right to liberty, qua moral right, is best understood, and then how that right can serve as a basic human right of indispensable value. Section I argues that if the right to liberty is understood as a general right to license, then, as Ronald Dworkin argues, it cannot be a basic right in any morally meaningful sense. Sections II, III, and IV consider and reject the view that the right to (...) liberty, as a basic right, comprises unrelated sets of either unilateral or bilateral liberty rights correlating with prima facie duties of non-interference. A new model of the basic right to liberty is offered in section V, and then defended in section VI. This model understands the basic right to liberty as a mutually held and reciprocally respected Hohfeldian power-right enjoyed by all basic-rights holders. In virtue of occupying the position of basic-rights holder and participation in a system of rights-permitted action and duty-required compliance or forbearance, persons come to enjoy emergent liberties that augment respect within the community and the value of having basic rights. (shrink)

On the Justification of Basic Rights In his thought-provoking article, Rainer Forst develops a discourse-theoretical approach to the justification of basic rights, and argues that it is superior to interest-based and autonomy-based views. I cast doubt on the superiority of the discourse-theoretical approach. I suggest that, on reflection, the approach suffers from the same difficulties that Forst believes undermine rival views. My discussion raises broader questions about what desiderata a good justification of basic rights (...) should satisfy. (shrink)

The Justification of Basic Rights. A Response to Forst This paper responds to Rainer Forst’s article ‘The Justification of Basic Rights’. I argue that Forst's main thesis is difficult to pin down, partly because it is formulated in significantly distinct ways at numerous points. I offer a possible formulation of the argument but note that this encapsulates a fallacy; I further argue that his inference of the basic rights seems to imply an over-moralisation of (...) social life and that his argument does not distinguish rights with discretionary and non-discretionary content. Then I query Forst’s claim that a right to justification is a condition of engaging in justificatory discourse. This leads to the conclusion that what goes into the process of justification, including who figures in the discursive community, are irreducibly political questions, whose answers cannot be convincingly specified antecedently by a form of moral legislation. I argue that actual discursive processes allow for considerably more contingency and contextual variability than Forst’s construction acknowledges. This extends, as I suggest in conclusion, to the idea that content can be specified via the Kantian notion that acceptability requires the ‘containment’ of an actor's ends by another, such as an affected party. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss a powerful challenge to high-liberalism: the challenge presented by neoclassical liberals that the high-liberal assumptions and values imply that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. If the claim is true, then the high-liberal road from ideals of democracy and democratic citizenship to left-liberal institutions is blocked. Indeed, in that case the high-liberal is committed to an institutional scheme more along the lines of laissez-faire capitalism than property-owning democracy. To present and (...) discuss this challenge, I let John Rawls represent the high-liberal argument that only a narrow range of economic liberties are basic rights and John Tomasi represent the neoclassical liberal argument that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. I show that Rawls’s argument is inadequate, but also that Tomasi’s argument fails. I thus conclude that high-liberalism is in a precarious situation, but is not yet undone by the neoclassical liberal challenge. (shrink)

This paper provides a reconsideration of Hobbes’s conception of basic rights, specifically its denial of the doctrine that someone’s having a basic right always correlates with another or others having duties or obligations with respect to that right. Various arguments denying this doctrine are considered, including that basic rights are effectively moral exemptions from obligations or are subordinate components of a system of Hohfeldian liberty-rights to which no person-specific duty or obligation correlates. But these (...) maneuvers side-step the full force of Hobbes’s understanding of basic rights as independent of any interpersonal relationship or system of rules, even those to which individuals may have agreed. The mere fact of others having basic rights is irrelevant to the having of one’s own. Part III argues that because Hobbes identifies morality with prudence, he cannot ascribe basic rights to all persons without adopting a version of ethical egoism—impersonal egoism—that cannot accommodate a set of basic rights that are consistently ascribable to all. The paper concludes with an argument showing that Hobbes’s analysis of basic rights fails because it disregards the moral context presupposed by both coherent rights-claims and the nature and degree of correlativity that a system of basic rights presupposes. (shrink)

In light of the many recent criticisms of Henry Shue's philosophy, this article provides a defense of Shue's philosophical argument for basic rights. The author demonstrates that the latest criticisms made by Thomas Pogge, Michael Payne, and Andrew Cohen misconstrue Shue's position, and therefore fail to overturn the soundness of Shue's argument. Against those who contend that basic rights demand too much, both logically and morally, the author argues that basic rights serve as the (...) minimal threshold for human dignity and the foundation for all other rights. Consequentially, the overall moral landscape is skewed if basic rights are absent. (shrink)

Shue's aim is to show that a set of economic rights are as basic as civil and political rights to security and to some forms of liberty. Rights are taken to provide the rational basis for a justified demand that the actual enjoyment of a substance be guaranteed against standard threats. Security rights are to physical security, and subsistence rights are to minimal economic security--adequate food, clothing, shelter, etc. Shue's strategy is to show that (...) the same structure of argument which supports security rights as basic also supports subsistence rights. Security rights are basic, not because they are intrinsically satisfying, but because without physical security no other rights can be enjoyed. Similarly, Shue argues, one cannot enjoy other rights without food, health, etc. A similar analysis is given of rights to political participation and freedom of movement. (shrink)

Following Elizabeth Anscombe, rights exist within practices. A right consists in a bundle of possible and impossible moves within the relevant social 'game', e.g. the practice of private property. What becomes of basic rights on such a social-constructivist conception? Metaphysically, basic rights do not differ from other rights. The right not to be murdered, however, enjoys a transcendental status within Anscombe's moral philosophy, and this construction might extend to other basic rights: Since (...) practical reasoning is directed at the good life, there can be no sound practical inference concluding in murder. Anscombe's argument for this presupposes a particular conception of human dignity, which is quite similar to the dominant conception in contemporary human rights literature. (shrink)

Henry Shue’s model of basic rights and their correlative duties provides an excellent framework for analysing the requirements of global distributive justice, and for theorising about the minimum acceptable standards of human entitlement and wellbeing. Shue bases his model on the claim that certain ‘basic’ rights are of universal instrumental value, and are necessary for the enjoyment of any other rights, and of any ‘decent life’. Shue’s model provides a comprehensive argument about the importance of (...) certain fundamental goods for all human lives, though he does not consider health or health care in any significant detail. Adopting Shue’s model, I argue that access to health care is of sufficient importance to the enjoyment of any other rights that it qualifies as what Shue describes as a ‘basic’ right. I also argue that the basic right to health care is compatible with the basic rights model, and is required by it in order to for it to achieve its goal of enabling right holders to enjoy any decent life. In making this claim I also explore the requirements of the basic right to health care in terms of Shue’s triumvirate of duties and with reference to several key examples. (shrink)

What Does it Mean to Justify Basic Rights? Reply to Düwell, Newey, Rummens and Valentini In this paper, I reply to the four comments on my paper ‘The Justification of Basic Rights: A Discourse-Theoretical Approach’ given by Laura Valentini, Marcus Düwell, Stefan Rummens and Glen Newey.

A theory of basic moral rights ought to aim at telling us who the beings are that have rights and of what those rights consist. It may, however, seek to achieve that goal via an indirect route. In this paper I shall attempt a strategy of indirection. The first stage of the argument is a consideration of why moral theory can allow any place at all to rights. Acknowledging rights can be inconvenient. An otherwise (...) desirable outcome is blocked if the only ways in which it can be attained involve the violation of rights. Why not jettison rights and thereby render these outcomes achievable? The answer that will be suggested trades on it being a deep fact about human beings that they can and do order their lives by reference to long-term commitments and aspirations. In my terminology, they are project pursuers. If people were rational animals all of whose interests were flickering and evanescent, an ethic entirely resting on maximization of impersonal value would be appropriate. But because projects entail commitments to values not subject to trade-offs, the introduction of rights is plausible. That is the first major stage of the argument. The second builds on it and tries to show that the recognition of rights or their equivalent is morally required, that only an ethic in which basic rights are acknowledged can be properly responsive to persons' status as project pursuers. More particularly, is suggested that rights take the form of constraints imposing minimal forbearance on others such that one has reasonable expectations of being able to pursue one's projects amidst a world of other project pursuers. (shrink)

In the presence of anthropogenic climate change, gross environmental degradation, and mass abject poverty, many political theorists currently debate issues such as people's right to water, the right to food, and the distribution of rights to natural resources more generally. However, thus far many theorists either focus (somewhat arbitrarily) only on one particular resource (e.g. water) or they treat all natural resources alike, meaning that many relevant distinctions within the group of natural resources are overlooked. Hence, the paper will (...) start with an analysis of the various forms which natural resources can take and how this might influence one's conception of resource rights. In so doing, the paper argues that we have to carefully distinguish between the actual physical resources people might control and how we distribute these, and the life-sustaining benefits each and every person draws from sustainable and functioning ecosystems. Based on this distinction, the paper will argue for a right to the benefits of life-sustaining ecosystem services as a universal basic right every person has. Further distributive claims with respect to particular physical resources would thus be limited by the requirements of such a basic right. (shrink)

The notion that the application of basic rights requires “balancing” is widely and increasingly accepted. Balancing judgments are ever more frequently used in judicial decisions, particularly in constitutional courts and especially in contemporary supra-national human-rights courts. Many jurists deem that balancing is the only possible method to arrive to a rational decision in cases of conflict between basic rights. I assert that this kind of conflict between principles has the same structure of moral conflicts. And, (...) as is the case with moral conflicts, the way conflicts are solved will depend on the underlying concept of practical reasoning. I describe the two basic patterns that practical reasoning may follow in situations of conflict between moral principles in general and argue against the idea that balancing is the most appropriate procedure to cope with the conflict, either in general terms or in juridical argumentation in particular. (shrink)

Basic rights are often of great instrumental value in securing protection for important human needs and interests. The first two sections of this paper defend the thesis that basic rights are also valuable independently of their instrumental role. Taking my cue from Frances Kamm's suggestion that basic rights reflect or express human worth, in the third, fourth and fifth sections I develop the proposal that the non-instrumental value of basic rights derives from (...) their constitutive role in a universal form of community or fellowship. The importance of basic rights' instrumental role is reaffi rmed in the final section of the paper, which builds on the earlier sections to offer a 'mixed' theory according to which basic rights have both instrumental and non-instrumental value. (shrink)

Although the Libertarian Party has gained traction as the third biggest political party in the United States, the philosophical grounding of the party, which is exemplified by Robert Nozick’s entitlement theory is inherently flawed. Libertarianism’s emphasis on a free market leads to gross inequalities since it has no regard for sacred rights other than one’s right to freedom from interference from the government beyond what is essential for societal functioning. I argue that Nozick’s entitlement theory leads to indirect injustice (...) and is therefore an unfitting philosophical theory, which means that the Libertarian Party’s platform is flawed. (shrink)

In this paper I explain and defend the content and justification of John Rawls's conception of human rights, as he outlines it in his major work: The Law of Peoples. I focus, in particular, on the criticisms of Allen Buchanan. Buchanan distinguishes four lines of argument that Rawls uses to derive what, according to Buchanan, is a 'lean' list of human rights : the Political Conception Argument, the Associationist Argument, the Cooperation Argument, and finally the Functionalist Argument. In (...) each case Buchanan proceeds to show how the premises of Rawls's argument lead to absurd consequences if taken to their logical conclusion. It can be shown, however, that the reason these consequences follow is that Buchanan misunderstands and misrepresents Rawls's premises. (shrink)

In jails, the prisoners are often maltreated by the jail authorities.They are abused, and, their fundamental rights as human beings are frequentlyviolated. Although laws upholding the rights of prisoners are plenty,unfortunately, these seem ineffective in preventing the abuse of prisonersin jails. This paper examines the problems of jailed prisoners in general andhighlights their violations of human rights. In particular, this paper discussessexual abuse of prisoners, their mental and physical tortures, and enforcement ofprison labour laws. The paper also (...) focuses on overcrowding in jails, inadequateeducational facilities for prisoners and poor health care facilities. This articleanalyses these issues from the perspectives of Islamic Law and attempts toprovide a conceptual frame work of solutions. An analytical approach isemployed in this study. (shrink)

The issue of the policy of multiculturalism toward ethno-cultural minorities in contemporary Serbia has been reviewed within the project Regional and European Aspects of Integrative Processes in Serbia held by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. The aim of this paper is directed toward examination of theoretical and empirical problems regarding the phenomenon of multiculturalism. In spite of the fact that multiculturalism is one of the striking characteristics of modern life in Serbia our social sciences pay a little attention (...) to this topic. Ethnicity as an important part of multicultural discourse is based on nonscientific knowledge and in this manner it presents basis for policy and practice for the protection of rights of minorities in the country. Problem politike multikulturalnosti prema etno-kulturnim manjinama u savremenoj Srbiji autor razmatra u okviru projekta Instituta za filozofiju i drustvenu teoriju "Regionalni i evropski aspekti integrativnih procesa u Srbiji: civilizacijske pretpostavke, stvarnost i izgledi za buducnost". Cilj rada na ovoj temi je usmeren ka razmatranju teorijskih i empirijskih problema u vezi sa fenomenom multikulturalnosti. Uprkos tome sto je multikulturalnost jedna od upecatljivijih karakteristika drustvenog zivota u Srbiji, u nasim drustvenim naukama malo paznje se posvecuje proucavanju ovog fenomena. Stavise, na neutemeljenim saznanjima o etnicitetu kao bitnom delu multikulturalnog diskursa eklekticki je osmisljena politika i konstruisana praksa zastite manjinskih prava u zemlji. (shrink)

The paper discusses the challenges faced by the theoretical thought and practice in Europe concerning the politics of. Though multiculturalism is a complex phenomenon assuming that many social diversities should be brought into accord, in the practice of the Central and Southeast European states it is reduced to the identification of the identities and the recognition of the ethno-cultural minorities' rights. In these regions the politics of multiculturalism meets the resistance of the majority as well as the barriers that (...) slow down their social development. The antagonists of multiculturalism find their allies in conservative though real opinions of the intellectuals and politicians in the West who are afraid that a too fast expansion of the European Union may jeopardize its economic development and disturb even more its political stability. U radu se razmatraju izazovi sa kojima se suocavaju teorijska misao i praksa u Evropi, u vezi sa politikom multikulturalnosti. Iako je multikulturalizam slozen fenomen koji podrazumeva uskladjivanje mnogih drustvenih razlicitosti u praksi drzava u Centralnoj i Jugoistocnoj Evropi on je redukovan na prepoznavanje identiteta i priznavanje prava etno-kulturnih manjina. U ovim regionima politika multikulturalnosti nailazi na otpor vecine i prepreke koje usporavaju njihov drustveni razvoj. Saveznike, neprijatelji multikulturalizma, nalaze u konzervativnim, ali aktuelnim misljenjima intelektualaca i politicara na Zapadu koji strahuju da ce prebrzo prosirenje Evropske unije ugroziti njen ekonomski razvoj i jos vise uzdrmati politicku stabilnost. (shrink)

The theory of rights is crucial as a means of relieving the tension between basic rights and democracy, and as a means of resolving the problem of allocating competence between the constitutional court and the legislature. To some theorists, no tension between basic rights and democracy exists, for the latter presupposes the former. To others, among whom I include myself, tension does exist, for basic rights, in lending protection to certain persons and groups, (...) limit the possibilities of political decision. In this connection it is important to take up the problem of the necessary conditions for realizing basic rights. One of these conditions concerns the delimiting of the scope of institutional action that is found, so to speak, in the space between the constitutional justices and the legislature, the latter as representative of the popular will. (shrink)

Basic emotions such as happiness, sadness, and anger are universal, regardless of the human species, and are governed by specific brain regions. A recent report revealed that mentalizing, which is the ability to estimate other individuals’ emotional states via facial expressions, can be preserved with the help of awake surgery. However, it is still questionable whether we can maintain the ability to understand others’ emotions by preserving the positive mapping sites of intraoperative assessment. Here, we demonstrated the cortical regions (...) related to basic emotions via awake surgery for patients with frontal glioma and investigated the usefulness of functional mapping in preserving basic emotion. Of the 56 consecutive patients with right cerebral hemispheric glioma who underwent awake surgery at our hospital, intraoperative assessment of basic emotion could be successfully performed in 22 patients with frontal glioma and were included in our study. During surgery, positive responses were found in 18 points in 12 patients. Of these, 15 points from 11 patients were found at the cortical level, mainly the premotor and posterior part of the prefrontal cortices. Then, we focused on cortical 15 positive mappings with 40 stimulations and investigated the types of emotions that showed errors by every stimulation. There was no specific rule for the region-emotional type, which was beyond our expectations. In the postoperative acute phase, the test score of basic emotion declined in nine patients, and of these, it decreased under the cut-off value in three patients. Although the total score declined significantly just after surgery, it recovered within 3 months postoperatively. Our study revealed that through direct electrical stimulation, the premotor and posterior parts of the prefrontal cortices are related to various kinds of basic emotion, but not a single one. When the region with a positive mapping site is preserved during operation, basic emotion function might be maintained although it declines transiently after surgery. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy. By Henry Shue Morality and Population Policy. By Michael D. Bayles.

Intellectual property Rights (IPRs) is protected by different systems of laws. Journals must choose a definitive form of systems. Some Blackwell journals use copyright system and some Blackwell use license from authors. Now a days online journals are using creative common licenses. Under creative common license journals are open access, allowed to download, copy, distribute, and display derivative works with proper attribution to author or owner for noncommercial purpose at a free cost. Education on IPRs will support to comprehend (...) ones rights, professional code of conduct and the doctrine of "fair use" in publication. One cannot do anything with once writing. Researchers, academic, editors and readers must have the basic knowledge on who owns the rights in a publication and what users can do with the publication by law. (shrink)

A just social arrangement must guarantee a right to health care for all. This right should be understood as a positive right to basic human functional capabilities. The present article aims to delineate the right to health care as part of an account of distributive justice in health care in terms of the sufficiency of basic human functional capabilities. According to the proposed account, every individual currently living beneath the sufficiency threshold or in jeopardy of falling beneath the (...) threshold has a legitimate claim to justice. People's entitlements to health care should not be determined on the basis of brute luck and their efforts to maintain healthy lifestyles. The prioritization of competing claim-rights of individuals is guided by two allocation principles: number and benefit-size weighted sufficiency (among people beneath the threshold) and need-weighted utilitarianism (among people above the threshold). (shrink)