What are Human Rights? Human Rights as Membership Rights in the Global Order

48 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2008

See all articles by Mathias Risse

Mathias Risse

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)

Date Written: February 2008

Abstract

Why do we have human rights? What ought to be the function of such rights in the global order, and to what extent does this help define what they are? Who needs to do what to realize these rights? In response to such questions this paper develops a conception of human rights that thinks of them as membership rights in the global order. Human rights are derived from contingent but relatively abiding political and economic arrangements. This conception has some intuitive disadvantages, but makes clear how human rights can be of genuinely global relevance; can explain why the language of rights (rather than goals or values) is appropriate here in the first place; derives human rights from relatively simple foundations; and can account of the range of disagreement that persists about precisely what should count as a human right.

Keywords: Ethics/Political Philosophy, Human Rights, Intergovernmental Relations, International Affairs/Globalization, Political Science

Suggested Citation

Risse, Mathias, What are Human Rights? Human Rights as Membership Rights in the Global Order (February 2008). KSG Working Paper No. RWP08-006, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1083719 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1083719

Mathias Risse (Contact Author)

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

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