ABSTRACT
In any well-developed rights system there are three major roles to be fulfilled: the rights holders, the duty bearers, and the agents of accountability. The task of the agents of accountability is to make sure that those who have the duties carry out their obligations to those who have the rights. The international human rights system is one concrete manifestation of the generic form of rights-based social systems. Rights systems can be established in many different contexts. To illustrate, many schools have standards that say students who have completed a certain grade should have achieved a certain measurable level of literacy and numeracy. Equalinrights moves from an understanding that human rights are tools to protect human dignity, as defined by people themselves from within local social and cultural contexts. This means that local dialogue on the meaning, relevance, and application of human rights-based strategies within these different contexts is a critical starting point.
