ABSTRACT
The recent debate over the nature of rights has been dominated by two rival theories of rights. Proponents of the Will Theory of rights hold that individual freedom, autonomy, control, or sovereignty are somehow to be fundamental to the concept of a right, while proponents of the Interest Theory argue that rights rather protect people's welfare. Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld introduced a terminology that is adopted in virtually all contemporary discussions on the nature of legal and moral rights. He observed that the word 'right' as it was commonly used in judicial reasoning tended to cover four fundamental legal conceptions that could be defined by grouping them in a scheme of 'correlatives' and 'opposites'. He thought that all legal relations could be analyzed as relations between two individuals. Apart from claim-rights and liberties, Hohfeld identified powers and immunities as concepts that where covered by the broad and unrestricted uses of the word 'right'.
