Introduction

Abstract

The concept of human rights remains a challenging concept and some of its aspects have yet to be further explored. As James Griffin notes in the introduction to his book, On Human Rights, there is a common “belief that we do not yet have a clear enough idea of what human rights are.” In a similar vein, Michael Rosen observes that “Human rights are obviously deeply puzzling— almost everyone nowadays professes commitment to them, yet few people would claim that they had a good, principled account of what they are and why we have them.” Following this same line of thought, Charles Beitz writes, “the problem is that, although the idea and the language of human rights have become increasingly prominent in public discourse, it has not become any more clear what kinds of objects human rights are supposed to be, why we should believe that people have them, or what follows from this belief for political practice.”.