ABSTRACT
Most of the millions of victims of the Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and myriad other tyrannical regimes throughout history were killed in the pursuit of national security as those governments saw it. Individuals, by virtue of their identity, can in various ways come to be viewed as a threat to the national interest or portrayed that way for political reasons by governments and/or dominant sectors of society. Religious identity predates national identity by many centuries and was the chief cause of wars and massacres within and between the rudimentary states of the pre-Westphalian era, aside from the age-old and perennial motive of straight territorial gain. Aside from nationality, ethnicity, religion and gender, a further form of identity subject to life-threatening discrimination is homosexuality and other minority sexual orientations. Codifying law is only part of the process of developing human rights.
