ABSTRACT
Groups may have rights of some sort, but, whatever those rights might be, they cannot be human rights. Human rights must be rights borne by human individuals. The first conception of group rights is the "collective" conception. The collective conception can be contrasted with the "corporate" conception of group rights. The principal difference between these conceptions is that, while the collective conception ascribes moral standing only to the individuals who jointly hold the group right, the corporate conception ascribes moral standing to the group as such. Corporate rights cannot be human rights because they are rights held by corporate entities rather than by human beings. A number of group rights have been claimed as, or associated with, human rights. This chapter examines how the collective and corporate conceptions of group rights bear upon the understanding of peoples and the rights of political self-determination claimed for them.
