[governance] Rights in IG research

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

Tapani and all,

  Fully agreed here.  And nicely argued as well...

Tapani Tarvainen wrote:

> 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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