Meaning of Human Rights:
Human rights are those rights to which an individual is entitled by virtue of his status as a human being. While civil, political, and socio-economic rights are dependent on an individual’s status as a citizen of a particular state, his human rights are not determined by this condition. Thus the scope of human rights is very wide. They set the standards for the provision and expansion of civil, political and socio-economic rights. Again, where an individual’s civil, political and socio-economic are exhausted, he can still hope to get some relief under the umbrella of human rights. For instance, a foreigner, a refugee, a prisoner-of-war or a proclaimed offender may have been left without ordinary rights, yet the beneficent hand of human rights will not be withdrawn from over his head.

Idea of rights:
Rights give expression to how all humans participate fully in civil society, defining the idealized norms against which a Society may be measured.

As expressions of the civic values that operate within any society, rights derive from the marriage of religious, philosophical, and legal principles that address social justice in the context of worldwide struggles to combat oppression and inequity, they do so out of an underlying, deep rooted respect for human life, dignity, and diversity.

The concept of rights or ‘human rights’, therefore, originates from the voice of protest against oppression perpetrated by the dominant groups in society. Rights are meant to safeguard the individual from the irresponsible and arbitrary use of power by the ruling class.

When the state is regarded as a means, and the individual as the end, the state cannot be armed with absolute authority over the individual. If the state claims authority, individuals must claim rights. Individual owes allegiance to the state and obeys it’s commands because the state serves his interest. What does an individual claim from the state ?
An answer to this question will elucidate the concept of rights.

Usage of Human Rights:
Human rights constitute the very source of all rights of human beings. They embody the scheme of ideal rights. They provide for the moral foundation of any system of rights. In a way they are kin to the concept of justice. As the idea of justice determines the principles on which law should be based, so the idea of human rights sets the standards on which all other rights should be based.

Human rights, like any other rights, have to be enforced by a state or any international tribunal who should be capable of enforcing them. Anybody who claims any human rights must prove himself to be law-abiding and must submit himself to law for appropriate justice. In order to understand the true character of human rights it would be worthwhile to describe the nature of rights as such.

If human rights are taken in a wide sense,i.e., as a means of protecting individuals from onslaughts or atrocities of arbitrary power, there is hardly any dispute about their status. But if they are viewed as a tool in the hands of an individual to safeguard his self interest against the claims of the state and society, they are likely to receive different treatment from different schools of thought.

These divergent views regarding the nature and status of rights or human rights may be called theories of human rights. Of these, liberal, libertarian, Marxist, communitarian and feminist theories are most important.

Aishwarya Says

I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.

If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.

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