Re: What makes a right universal?
Exec. Director, Witness; Human Rights Advocate
Caldwell, on the role of politics.
Well I mean that’s a very . . . That’s a big debate . . . is, you know, which rights are universal and which rights are or should be left to the discretion of countries. Or in the U.S. context even, what should be left to the federal government versus what should be left to the states. Again, politics play into this of course because the so-called first generation rights were the civil and political rights like the right to vote or the right to freedom of speech. The so-called third generation rights – social, economic and cultural rights – which were being pushed for more often by the developing world and/or by social democracies in communist countries are only slowly beginning to gain some credibility at a global level. So there’s always been this priority and primacy placed on the right be free from torture; but when you start to talk about the right to housing, there are lots of questions even amongst the westerners who are advocating and who have been leading the human rights movement about the enforceability of those rights because the economic implications are so substantial.
Recorded on: 8/13/07
December 26, 2007 | In Politics & Policy
Discuss
Ben Fletcher on January 16, 2008, 9:19 AM
she didnt really answer the question
Ben Fletcher on January 16, 2008, 9:20 AM
she didnt really answer the question….?
Ben Fletcher on January 16, 2008, 2:19 PM
she didnt really answer the question
Ben Fletcher on January 16, 2008, 2:20 PM
she didnt really answer the question….?
Navid Zarrinnal on October 26, 2009, 12:08 AM
She does not provide a clear answer, but she is moving in the right direction I think. I understood her to say that negative freedoms should not be the only universal rights (e.g.: freedom NOT to be tortured). We should also look at positive freedoms (e.g.: right to decent living conditions) as universal human rights.
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