[governance] Rights in IG research

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 10:25:50AM +0530, Parminder (parminder at itforchange.net) wrote:

> First, tell me if you think 'right to education' as mention in the
> UDHR, and as applied in many developed countries justifying imprisonment of
> parents etc is considered by you as a (real) 'right' or not. 

As I read it, it is an obligation on states (governments)
to provide free and compulsory elementary education.
It is clearly a positive right, but despite the grammar, the 
provider is rather obviously implied.
I.e., it is a right of individuals against their governments.
 
> which tangible party is fully capable
> of delivering 'full bodily security' on demand???

All those who could threaten it.

I'm not being facetious. Having a right to something doesn't mean
you're guaranteed to have it, but that if someone deprives you of
it, they are wrong and you are the wronged party.

While the distinction between negative and positive rights isn't
always so clear-cut, the key point remains: negative rights are
something you would have automatically if there was nobody else
taking them away from you. Positive rights need someone explicitly
delivering something to you, at a cost.

If an individual or intranational group have positive rights,
it generally means their government has to pay.

A state can obviously have negative rights, like the right
not to be attacked. 

But if a state is asserted to have positive rights, who is the
other party?

A "right to development" could conceivably be understood, for
example, as including a right against some kinds of trade policies
(a few WTO rules come to mind), and then it might be quite useful.
But it would need careful thinking and phrasing to be actually
meaningful, applicable to real situations.

If we are to assert a new right we should have at least some kind
of idea, preferably consensus, of what it would actually mean in
practice.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen
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