ABSTRACT
It is important, at the very outset, to explain what has come to be accepted as the conventional meaning of human rights. Though the human rights contained in the multitude of UN human rights declarations, covenants, and conventions cover a whole range of rights, including an economic right such as the right to food, and a collective right such as the people’s right to selfdetermination, the term “human rights” as used by most human rights activists today carries a more restricted meaning. Human rights are often equated with individual rights-specifically individual civil and political rights. This equation has a genealogy, a history behind it.
