ABSTRACT
This chapter subjects the concept of human rights to a conceptual analysis including an explanation of how human rights differ from other rights. It focuses on the human right to welfare and the scope of this right. The chapter explores the main ways in which the human right to welfare can be grounded: in the badness of pain and suffering, our interdependence and our joint humanity. It argues that the grounding based on a joint humanity is most appropriate because it consistently includes all right-holders without exception. The chapter addresses the possible criticisms of using human rights as the justification for developing international policy. There are different ways of understanding welfare which could all be argued to help measure how good one’s life is going by one’s own standards. Hedonism, at its most basic, is understood as the balance of pleasure over pain in one’s life. Human rights are an appropriate mechanism around which policy should be made.
