ABSTRACT
Rights are under attack some conservatives criticize the expansion of rights for lacking a legitimate basis, for contributing to adversariness and social conflict, or for undermining respect for law. This chapter upholds the interpretive approach. It follows these interpretive themes and develops what may seem to be a counterintuitive defense of rights as tools to express and strengthen community. The chapter turns to an important challenge to the interpretive approach posed by Robert Cover’s essay, Violence and the Word? The chapter describes that “Rights” can give rise to “rights consciousness” so that individuals and groups may imagine and act in light of rights that have not been formally recognized or enforced. It suggests that rights rhetoric does not create conflict, but rather accompanies the public violence used to challenge private violence. The district court held that a potential conflict of interest between the children and the foster parents required separate representation of the children.
