Mainz, Germany

Dear Maldonado,

I'm glad to see your contribution here. I notice that you mention "debate and agreements, discussions and commitments," but say nothing of inquiry on values. Nor do you say how you stand on open questions above in the thread. 

I wonder, in particular, if you are willing to take a stand on the common notion that the prevalence of contention and conflict shows us something about the cognitive character of any particular question. It would be interesting to have your related views.

We agree on human rights belonging to our on-going civilization. They are ordering principles of human relations which we ignore only at great peril to the human future.

H.G. Callaway

Mainz, Germany

Dear Risser,

Thanks for your question. Its a difficult one, but not without its importance. As it happens, I was just having a discussion about what is "natural" in human life over diner.

The view I am most inclined to defend is that we create values, in solving problems, and that after values are created, then we discover which of them are better and worse.Trying to discover which are better and worse, we have to rely upon the values we already have --though they may not be preserved as a whole. There is no starting over from scratch.

Similarly, human beings create languages, and then, once they are created, we must work to discover their power and limitations. (Consider, as an example the language of mathematics.) They sometimes stand in need of reforms or improvements to meet new problems arising. But as is particularly evident to those who may be learning a technical or a foreign language, the language under study may have yet undiscovered powers and aspects.

H.G. Callaway

David ,

''While there may be disagreement about the particular rights articulated in the Declaration, the basic moral aspirations represented by these rights are widely accepted, although far less widely realized in practice, around the world.''  

If we take the equality of man and women, this is not a widely accept moral aspiration.  What is in practice around the world does not widely reflect the acceptation of this value.  A lot of ancient religious tradition do not accept this equality.   Most of the population of the world live in societies that are patriarchal for thousand of years.  The western societies had partriarchal domination of man over women until very recently. By the time UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, then such equalitarian man women value started to dominate in only a few powerfull countries, those involved in crafting the charter.  Since then the consensus has widen in the west but not that much elsewhere. 

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

This is mostly the case in the west, but in India for example, the widely accepted social norm is for marriages to be arranged by the families between families of the same religion  and similar socio-economic status.  This is their values and they never have been consulted when the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights have bee written.  It is quite arrogant to claim this declaration as having the character of ''Universal''.  Most of the values in this so-called Universal Declaration has never been universally accepted and the process of the creation of this charter has been done by only minimal input for the people around the world.  

Values are constructed during the evolution of societies and are as diverse as the culture of these societies and are constantly evolving as these societies.  

Article 5.  No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Since 9/11 tortured in the form of enhanced interrogation technique for preventing terrorist has been legitimate in the practice of the US secret services and although the use of such ''enhanced interrogation techniques'' has been acknowledge , so far absolutly no one has been put on trial for this.  It is defacto impunity.  So although the US government condemned such practice and pledge no using them, this de facto impunity send the message that if order are given in the future to practice them against, then don't worry, impunity for those following state orders will prevail.

Human rights are constructed within culture and culture are co-constructed with societies. There may be some limited cultural universal, most of the cultural is not universal but emerging out of a cultural tradition that transmit from one generation to the next constantly evolving.  

''Geertz himself argues for a “semiotic” concept of culture: “Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun," he states “I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretative one in search of meaning. It is explication I am after, construing social expression on their surface enigmatical.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Geertz

We are not disvering the human rights we are spunning them.

Mainz, Germany

Dear all,

Consider the following claim:

"We are not discovering the human rights we are spinning them."

I suppose that some may, indeed, be "spinning" their approach to human rights. But, I suspect this invites playing fast and loose with the concepts involved. The "spin" put on the matter of prohibition of torture is an interesting case in point. In effect, we had a serious departure from the rule of law, sponsored by complicated and dubious rationalizations from within the justice department. It was one of the first acts of the new administration in 2008 to reverse the related policies and take a firm legal stance. But if the meaning of human rights is something we can freely adjust for political and social convenience, within any given social and political tradition, then a return to legal rationalizations is implicitly allowed. Have no doubt that someone one may use such illegitimate powers, if the intellectuals give a nod. 

Trying out "anything goes," as social and political philosophy is an invitation to catastrophe. Its an unwarranted experiment upon rejection of the enlightened wisdom of the ages and a potentially disastrous experiment of mankind upon himself.  The fact that many human societies have had no firm recognition of human rights is a mere fact of the domain of discussion, with no special relevance to the evaluation of human rights where they are traditionally recognized --unless, of course, one assumes that there can be no "better and worse," for any particular society in light of its own values and tradition.

It strikes me that the sole ground for that kind of supposition is that there is, as yet, no universal agreement --and that discussions or debates between strongly differing social and political traditions tend to the contentious. This reverence for contention as a proof or disproof of anything is a mere supposition. It over estimates the degree and kind of agreement which is reasonably expected in moral and political questions. Its a sophism.

H.G. Callaway

I think, in fact they are both, invented and discovered. Moral ideas and foundations are the result of human activity and they are like rules, applied (and applicable) in certain social and historical conditions. They evolve, depending, among others, from the needs of human groups. For example, if you analyze the Decalogue, there were practical applications in almost every rule, for a small group of persons, living and trying to survive in those natural - geographical conditions, in the middle of great empires, where an ordered, strict and healthy behavior was crucial. And were preserved because they worked.

Then, they were invented, because they are the result of centuries of human practices; but they were discovered, because people had to realize that that behavior was convenient, and later they made abstraction from the origin, and began to consider them as given rules.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Risser,

By the way, as far as I know, my related views here do not agree with those of Rorty.

I maintain that there is definitely something of cognitive character in value inquiry. This is not going to turn out to be exact and precise science, and we should limit our expectations of precision in relation to the subject matter. 

Generally, though, given a pre-existing array of values in a given society or culture, and some problem encountered, there are going to be better and worse possible reforms to the pre-existing values, that arise from that very array of values --though this, obviously, does not forbid reform or change in the array. 

Every living society already has values, and the question is whether their values, as they stand, are adequate to solve their problems. People are, generally, very conservative when it comes to changing values, and with some justice. It is not a purely theoretical matter.

More later.

H.G. Callaway

Dear David, when being optimistic, history can be viewed as a civilisation process through which we we enrich and develop our humanity. Human rights belong to such an endeavour.

As we know we can distinguish at least the 1789 Declaration, and the 1940 Declaration of the HR, along with a number of treatises, etc. It has not been easy, but that history is one of debate and agreements, discussions and commitments.

We have made it all possible, it has not been a gift. We all shall continue affirming and developing our humanity as much as possible.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Maldonado,

I'm glad to see your contribution here. I notice that you mention "debate and agreements, discussions and commitments," but say nothing of inquiry on values. Nor do you say how you stand on open questions above in the thread. 

I wonder, in particular, if you are willing to take a stand on the common notion that the prevalence of contention and conflict shows us something about the cognitive character of any particular question. It would be interesting to have your related views.

We agree on human rights belonging to our on-going civilization. They are ordering principles of human relations which we ignore only at great peril to the human future.

H.G. Callaway

Dear Callaway, as you know, the inquiry on values is worked out or carried out via debate and discussion, f.i. There is, of course, no pure Platonic injury of values. Plato himself, f.i. was pretty much aware about the debates between Socrates and the sophists.

That said, dialogue and argumentation are very seeds of our civilisation. Without gong into the belief that dialogue is conversation. On the contrary, it entails discussion, critique - the very essence of science - at large.

I do love our conversations, from thread to another.

Dear all,

Discovery: the act of finding or learning something for the first time : the act of discovering something

: something seen or learned for the first time : something discovered

An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. The invention process is a process within an overall engineering and product development process.

''Another meaning of invention is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social behaviours adopted by people and passed on to others.''

''Invention is also an important component of artistic and design creativity. Inventions often extend the boundaries of human knowledge, experience or capability.''

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention

''Are human rights discovered or invented?''

Charter of human rights are often included into the law of a state. The laws of a state are they discovered or invented?

If we look at the meaning of discovery and invention the answer is clearly that the laws as all of culture which include value are invented by particular society and it is why they are not universal.  

It is why I find the weber's metaphor of us being suspended in webs of significance we ourself  have spun, so telling.

'Wade Davis open his book ''The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World'',  ''One of the intense pleasures of travel is the opportunity to live amongst peoples who have not forgotten the old ways, who still feel their past in the wind, touch it in stones polished by rain, tste it in the bitter leaves of plants.  Just to know that, in the Amazon, Jaguar shaman still journey beyond the Milky Way, tht the myths of the Inuit elders still resonate with meaning, that the Buddhists in Tibets still pursue the breath of the Dharma is to remember the central revelation of anthropology: the idea that the social world in which we live does not exit in some absolute sense, but rather is simply one model of reality, the consequence of one set of intellectual and spiritual choices that our particular cultural lineage made, however successfully, many generations ago.''

Great discussion. Louis Brassard, thank you for defining the two important terms in the question.

Humans lived with natural rights for a long time and as Locke points out once the property and me and mine came in tot the picture new laws were being made and the natural laws that protected the humans were either forgotten or manipulated with. I believe that these natural laws and by extension human rights were rediscovered once humans realized that humans are in danger from other humans. Yes, new values were invented added on to the list of human rights but they are based on natural law.

Thus one can argue that natural law evolved into Human Rights. 

Human rights discovered whereas were naturally exists.

Mainz, Germany

Dear all,

Readers of this thread may want to take a look at the English Bill of Rights of 1689:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp

Our question on this thread makes reference to John Locke on rights, and that suggests that the Bill of 1689 is also of interest beyond the declaration of the French Assembly of 1789. The English Bill was an Act of Parliament, and is usually associated with the "ascendancy of Parliament."

You will notice, I think, peculiarities of those times in the Bill, later removed from English law and accounts of human rights generally.

H.G. Callaway

Along the same line as the contribution by H. G. Callaway, readers may also wish to read about The Magna Carta, the English charter of 1215: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

Mainz, Germany

Dear Olabisi & readers,

While we are at something of a survey here, it is worth taking a look at the U.S. "Bill of Rights" : the first ten amendments to the constitution of 1789:

http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/

Of particular interest for the present discussion is the following:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

---End quotation

I tend to think that this amendment was added partly because the Bill of Rights did not exactly duplicate the similar provisions in the constitutions of the various states. But it also seems to leave open the door to the idea that enumeration of other rights might later need to be added. 

In fact, after the Civil War (1861-1865), the XIII Amendment was added to the constitution:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

---End quotation

This was the first element of the reformed constitutional order established after the war, and it recognized a right not to be enslaved, in the manner which had existed prior to the war. Given the ferocity of the war, reaching this new settlement was by no means easy and it up-ended the economic and political life of the South for many years.

More generally, as we come to know more, we become able to do things not theretofore possible. Knowledge is power. Such new human powers may result in new social and political problems, and solving such problems may require us to recognize new rights.

As an example, confidentiality on the internet comes immediately to mind.

H.G. Callaway

Dear all,

We may understand that philosophers such as Hobbes, and Locke to defend a naturalist notion of human rights against other philosophers of their time defending a notion of laws given to humans through divine revelation (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/), a debate not informed by now established fact that humans are intrincally a social animal descending from primate social animals. Different social animals have different ways to interact socially.  These social interaction have evolved differently in different lineages.  Human societies have also evolved in different civilisazation lineages and what is considered a appropriated social relations came to mean very different things.  The human civilisations now have a lot of influences on each other and comes to build common values.  In the domain of finance and commerces, these common values have been established for a long time.  We currently accept the US$ as a common money of international exchange.  We use the same mathematics for doing our calculation and we learn more or less the same science.   But the foundations of the different human civilisation are not the same although they differentiated from one common ancestral human lineage.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Lucero,

"Human creation," yes. But if this is a completely unrestrained exercise in creativity, then implicitly, we are giving the politicians a free pass--which they use to indirectly favor big money and their own supporters?

Compare questions in science. Was Einstein's work on the theory of space, time and gravity an exercise in human creativity? Certainly it was. But, on the other hand, if he had not matched the results of Newtonian physics everywhere it had been tested and confirmed, then no one would have given him a second hearing.

Human rights are the fundamental social values required for life together and to make government tolerable. Surely, we cannot simply make these up as we go along.

H.G. Callaway

I suppose, invented

human rights are discovered, while as human rights violations are invented one or in the other way

Mainz, Germany

Dear Baumgarten & readers,

Thanks for your contribution to this thread. I do think it makes sense to say that human beings discovered the need of formal political organization, and it seems to me that human rights or doctrines of human rights are often seen as essential or basic elements of formal political organization. So various declarations of human rights have been created to meet the perceived need. It also seems to be the case that different declarations of formulations may be more plausible within differing social-political traditions. 

I came across the following, on-line PDF of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I think may be of interest here:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf

I also notice, looking around a bit that there are some influential, contemporary critics of the concept which may be worth looking into. More on this later.

In general terms, I am skeptical of the idea that moral and political theory, concepts and deliberations are capable of the same high degree of precision which we find in the natural sciences. I think there are many reasons for this, and it has to do with the broad array of human interests involved, which encourages, ever again, the beginners and young to charge into the topic--again, in every generation. The business is never really finished, because it is an element of modern political socialization. Everyone gets involved, expert and novice, the highly educated specialists and those who are merely interested, etc., etc. The various layers or levels of discourse and discussion are continually superimposed on each other. Democratic societies encourage such broad participation and much questioning and debate. 

I think we may do well, on this thread to look into the criticisms of the human rights skeptics.

H.G. Callaway

Mainz, Germany

Dear Baumgarten,

Nice reply. I think we see pretty much eye to eye on the matter. We see something of the same or similar phenomenon of more contentious debate, when questions of scientific interpretation are opened up to more general and public discussion. Your examples are good.

We do well not to neglect some attention to the common misconception of scientific discourse as simply all cut and dried by means of some neat algorithm. 

H.G. Callaway

I think Human right can not be explained by single theory and on the basis of single criteria. It may be the outcome of multiple things such as person needs, society`s need, country`s need and world`needs ,human`s emotional and physiological aspects etc.

H.G. Callaway ·,

"In general terms, I am skeptical of the idea that moral and political theory, concepts and deliberations are capable of the same high degree of precision which we find in the natural sciences."

The political and societal processes are intrinsically historical processes that do not repeat themself.   They are development process and central to these processes are human actors which act according to ideological interpretation of the events and so are themself factor of what is happening.  Even if a political theory would be uterly flawed, if it would be widely accepted , it would influence the events along paths that are prescribed by it rendering partialy true.   Religious ideologies irrespective based on totally supernatural beliefs can actually render themself partially true if large number of peoples act along the prescribe line of these beliefs.  As soon as a political theory is proposed and become known and is accepted it becomes in itself, true or not, a major factor of the unfolding societal events.  The placebo effect of political theories is enormous.  Is science possible in such context where the actors are influencing themself through their reflections to such extent?  We are immerse into a story which began a long time ago; we are trying to figure out what is this story we are in and we act according to the understanding we developed and constantly revised.  How could a desengaged objective theory of such process be provided given the intrinsic engaged subjective nature of such process?  We are into actor into a movie which are trying to figure out the patterns in the movie but by doing so immediatly change tthe previous pattern based on the idea (true or not) about what patterns are there.  Is'nt it a impossible task?  A more realistic task would be for these actors to decide to become scenarist (because it is what they are) and try to decice how they would like to continue the movie they are in in  a way that is feasible and realistic. The promulgation of human rights is part of the scenarisation of our future.

I take seriously Alasdair MacIntyre's argument that "for the truth is plain: there are no such rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and in unicorns. The best reason for asserting so bluntly that there are no such rights is indeed of precisely the same type as the best reason which we possess for asserting that there are no witches and the best reason which we possess for asserting that there are no unicorns: every attempt to give good reasons for believing that there are such rights has failed. The eighteenth-century philosophical defenders of natural rights sometimes suggest that the assertions which state that men possess them are self-evident truths; but we know that there are no self-evident truths"  (MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Third Edition (p. 69). University of Notre Dame Press. Kindle Edition.).  George Carlin's spectacular diatribe, shared frequently on YouTube: "You have no rights"  is comparable to Nietzsche's Section 335 of the Gay Science, which lays bare the notion that rights and their attending principles are not much more than a more or less clever foist of power by one person or group upon another. 

What is more interesting, and more practical, is to determine what conditions provide for human flourishing, and the kind of socio-economic and political practices and traditions support such an outcome.  That is when the reality of various claims becomes acutely transparent, that resources, protection, and various kinds of relationships are necessary for human flourishing in ways that rights cannot be properly imagined.  For example, is access to the Internet a right?  While that question might be debated ad infinitum by academics and philosophers, the consequences of access, and the protection from retaliation for using the Internet are realities that depend on more than abstract definitions.  People may have flourished in the past without the Internet, but for certain people, situated in a certain time and place, such access may be critical to their very survival.  Abstracting the rights out of those circumstances is a philosophical dead end.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Adams,

Thanks for your skeptical contribution. It seems to me that it would be a useful exercise here to see how the defenders of human rights may come to deal with MacIntyre's criticisms in After Virtue. Your sketch of his position is a useful start. But you hardly get beyond stating his negative conclusion.

Let me try a counter-example to his conclusion: a paradigm case argument, I suppose. The examples is that in the U.S. the federal courts are strongly inclined to protect the freedom of the press (to put the matter at a minimum)-- as specified in the first amendment. But, if the federal courts are protecting such a right, then there must be such a right which they are protecting. The proof of this is that people can appeal to the right, and when they do, they are protected against contrary interference. This makes of the question something empirical and testable by looking to the actual cases which have come before the courts and the decisions rendered by the courts. I think many other, similar arguments would not be difficult to produce. Say, for example, in the U.S. people charged with a crime have the right to trial by jury of their peers.

Is this a good argument, and does it up-end MacIntyre's skepticism? How might he reply?

H.G. Callaway

Quotes from : Bill Bowring Misunderstanding MacIntyre on Human Rights

http://www.analyse-und-kritik.net/2008-1/AK_Bowring_2008.pdf

 In fact, MacIntyre (2006, 111) is very far from being a nihilist. Instead, he has argued for “socially embodied moral concepts”. Aristotle, according to him, had the following position:

 “[. . . ]that it was only within a particular type of political and social order that rationally practical and moral concepts could be socially embodied”.

 MacIntyre has also said the following in the same text:

 “The conclusion to which the argument has so far led is not only that it is out of the debates, conflicts and enquiry of socially embodied, historically contingent traditions that contentions regarding practical rationality and justice are advanced, modified, abandoned or replaced, but that there is no other way to engage in the formulation, elaboration, rational justification, and criticism of accounts of practical rationality and justice except from within some one particular tradition in conversation, cooperation, and conflict with those who inhabit the same tradition.”

Griffin’s Aristotelian account of human rights “[. . . ] is centred on the notion of agency. We human beings have the capacity to form pictures of what a good life would be and to try to realise these pictures. We value our status as agents especially highly, often more highly even than out happiness. Human rights can then be seen as protections of our agency – what one might call our personhood. They are protective of that somewhat austere state, the life of an agent and not of a good or happy or perfected or flourishing life.” (Griffin 2000, 10)

'' As Stephen B. Smith put it: “Rights, then, are not simply given, but are part of a larger historical struggle of human beings to achieve, or to become worthy of respect or recognition.” (Smith 1989, 114)''

 ''This is not to relativise human rights. On my account, the concept of the universality of human rights on a foundation of natural law has no moral content. It cannot assist either in the critique of ideology or indeed actuality; nor can it provide the bridge which can indicate the actions we ought to take.''

 ''On the contrary, it is my case that human rights are real, and provide a ground for judgment and for action, to the extent that they are understood in their historical context, and as, and to the extent to which, they embody and define the content of real human struggles''

If talking about the initial conception of human rights, and conceding that basic personal rights fit within that concept, then I would say they were discovered.

I think "discovered" on a personal level, as when somebody stands up to being maltreated, like refusing to no longer be yelled at, beat up, starved, etc. The old adage,"A person has nothing if not his dignity." I believe that "invented" human rights came afterwards when a group of people dictated what was acceptable and unacceptable treatment. Thus they "invented" criteria for the treatment of their clan/tribe.

Quotes from 

CONDITIONS OF AN UNFORCED CONSENSUS ON HUMAN RIGHTS By Charles Taylorhttp:

//iilj.org/courses/documents/CharlesTaylor.pdf

Lee Kwan Yew, and those in South Asia who sympathize with him. They see something dangerously individualistic, fragmenting, dissolvent of community, in this western legal culture. (Of course, they have particularly in mind – or in their sights – the United States.) But in their criticism of Western procedures, they also seem to be attacking the underlying philosophy of the West, which allegedly gives primacy to the individual, where supposedly a “Confucian” outlook would have a larger place for the community, and the complex web of human relations in which each person stands. For the Western rights tradition also vehicles certain views on human nature, society and the human good. In other words, it also carries some elements of an underlying justification.

…

Many societies have held that it is good to ensure certain immunities or liberties to their members – or sometimes even to outsiders (think of the stringent laws of hospitality that hold in many traditional cultures). Everywhere it is wrong to take human life, at least under certain circumstances and for certain categories of persons. Wrong is the opposite of right, and so this is in some sense in play here. But a quite different sense of the word is invoked when we start to use the definite or indefinite articles, or to put it in the plural, the speak of “a right” or “rights”: or when we start to attribute these to persons, and speak of your rights or my rights. This is to introduce what has been called “subjective rights.” Instead of saying that it is wrong to kill me, we begin to say that I have a right to life. The two formulations are not equivalent in all respects. Because in the latter case the immunity or liberty is considered as it were the property of someone. It is no longer just an element of the law that stands over and between all of us equally. That I have a right to life says more than that you shouldn’t kill me. It gives me some control over this immunity. A right is something which in principle I can waive.5 It is also something which I have a role in enforcing. Some element of subjective right exists perhaps in all legal systems. The peculiarity of the West was, first, that it played a bigger role in European mediaeval societies than elsewhere in history, and, second, that it was the basis of the rewriting of Natural Law theory which marked the 17th Century. The older notion that human society stands under a Law of Nature, whose origin was the creator, and which was thus beyond human will, was now transposed. The fundamental law was reconceived as consisting of natural rights, attributed to individual prior to society. At the origin of society stands a Contract, which takes people out of a State of Nature, and puts them under political authority, as a result of an act of consent on their part.

…

rity, as a result of an act of consent on their part. So subjective rights are not only crucial to the western tradition, because they have been an important part of its jurisprudence since the Middle Ages. Even more significant is the fact that they were projected onto Nature, and formed the basis of a philosophical view of humans and their society, one which greatly privileges individuals’ freedom and their right to consent to the arrangements under which they live. This view becomes an important strand in Western democratic theory of the last three centuries.

…

That (subjective) rights thus operate today as trumps is the convergence of two different if intertwined lines of promotion. On one hand, there is the old conception of the fundamental law of our polity, which the decrees or decisions of the authority of the day cannot override. This played a role in pre-modern European societies, even as it did frequently elsewhere. The entrenchment of Charters means that the language of rights has become a privileged idiom for a good part of this fundamental law. This is one line of advance. At the same time, European thought also had a place for a Law of Nature, a body of norms with even more fundamental status, because they are universal and hold across all societies. Again, analogous concepts can be found elsewhere. The place of rights in our political discourse today shows that it has also become the favoured idiom for this kind of law. We speak of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is the second line of advance. The rights we now entrench in Charters benefit from both these promotions. These rights occupy the niche which already existed in many legal systems, whereby laws were subject to judicial review. While at the same time, their great force in modern opinion comes from the sense that they are not just features of our legal tradition, that they are not part of what is culturally conditioned, one option among others which human societies can adopt, but fundamental, essential, belonging to human beings as such – in short inviolable. So the Western discourse of rights involves, on one hand, a set of legal forms by which immunities and liberties are inscribed as rights, with certain consequences for the possibility of waiver, and for the ways in which they can be secured; whether these immunities and liberties are among those from time to time granted by duly constituted authority, or among those which are entrenched in fundamental law. And it involves, on the other hand, a philosophy of the person and of society, attributing great importance to the individual, and making significant matters turn on his or her power of consent.’’