ABSTRACT
On the first day of a new semester, I always begin by asking students enrolled in my International Conflict and Violence class to define a list of terms that will play an important role in all of our discussions. And each semester they have the least amount of trouble defining the same term: human rights. Some point out that there exists quite a long list of these rights, that the list was finalized in 1948, and that it came to be known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; others include in their definitions the fact that violations of these rights occur with disturbing regularity all over the world. To be fair, there are always a few students who take the easy way out and tell me that human rights are rights that all human beings have. Circular though it sounds, there is technically nothing wrong with this definition; human rights are rights that we all hold solely by virtue of our being human. And there is much to be gleaned from a closer look at this simplistic definition. For once they have started defining terms, students typically want to continue, and they add to their initial definition of human rights by looking more closely at the idea of rights. Rights, they note, are guarantees; if I have the right, for example, to speak freely, then no one may prevent me from doing so. If I am so prevented, I need only claim my right – pointing to the language of the American Bill of Rights or the Universal Declaration – and I should quickly find my grievance redressed. At the very least, there is a system in place by which such grievances can be brought forward, complete with courts to adjudicate the issue. This, my students argue, is the power of rights: they imply an obligation on another’s part.1 Further, and with only a minor amount of encouragement, these students will take their idea forward a few additional giant leaps, noting that, because they are rights that are guaranteed to all human beings, human rights cannot be bartered, sold, stolen, or otherwise removed. In other words, the only way one can truly lose one’s human rights is to cease to be human, a seemingly impossible scenario.
