ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by clarifying the author's main aim of carving out a space for a practice-sensitive conceptual analysis of human rights. It explains why people ought to care about answering the question 'what are human rights'. The chapter looks at one relatively successful attempt at a concept of human rights, namely Charles Beitz's practical account of human rights, which he develops in The Idea of Human Rights. The most common criticism of Beitz's approach is that it supports the status quo. After all the concept of human rights is for Beitz directly dependent on the way participants in the practice see human rights. The chapter focuses on the criticisms, which his and other practical accounts have faced. It examines Christian Barry's and Nicholas Southwood's criticism of Beitz's approach as well as their alternative – the substantive, pluralist account of human rights. The chapter addresses John Tasioulas's rejection of, what he calls, the functional approach.
