[governance] Rights in IG research

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 06:10:05PM -0400, Milton L Mueller (mueller at syr.edu) wrote:

> * One could meaningfully assert a negative right, a right not to have
> other companies, individuals or nations interfere with their economic
> activity in ways that violate or impair their development. But this is
> an extension of other basic rights, such as property rights (i.e., theft
> of resources) or rights to be free from violence (i.e, invasion, coups
> d'etat, etc.).

Yes.

Note that "classic" Human Rights are all exactly such negative rights.
Freedom of speech does not mean someone is obligated to provide
you with free TV time, but that you can express your ideas with
whatever means you have and nobody may stop you.
Right to life only means nobody may kill you, not that everybody 
must do everything they can to keep you alive.

That is no accident. 

As you observe, positive rights really makes sense only with an
explicitly specified other party. They cannot meaningfully be 
asserted against "everybody". In a national context, state is
often implied as the provider of such rights, but internationally
that doesn't work.

Any Bill of Rights should stick to negative rights, negative though
that term sounds, lest it become meaningless, impossible to implement
and eventually ignored.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen
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