ABSTRACT
Typical features of the general rights discourse are, as we have seen in Chapter Two, the focus upon negative and positive rights and on individual and collective rights, where political rights are either not problematized at all or only in terms of negative rights. To choose a discourse theoretical approach to human rights means to follow Habermas in the ambition to focus on political rights as substantial and action-related, thus demanding an alternative view of action: notably, while negative rights demand of others not to act and positive rights demand of others to act, political rights, viewed from a discourse theoretical standpoint, demand of the subject herself to act. Political rights are active rights that cannot easily be distributed but rather need to be created through their very use, i.e., through action.
