ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which liberal jurisprudence has dealt with the ascendancy of human rights. Its main exponents have developed justifications for the discourse of rights with scant reference to their actual practice. Liberal jurisprudence has set itself the task to explain and celebrate this amazing turnaround. Both ground rights on similar conceptions of personhood; both come up with similar lists of rights although their methods differ. Their human rights treatises are a good example of the strengths and weaknesses of normative jurisprudence. All rights depend on enforceable rules. Rules come into existence in particular historical and institutional contexts. The very emergence of human rights shows the shortcomings of this approach. Gewirth and Griffin criticize the ‘debased’ philosophical coinage of rights and set out to save jurisprudence. The dual promise of the Enlightenment and the natural rights tradition was social and individual emancipation from the fetters of feudal economy and religious superstition and, second, self-fulfilment, freedom and happiness.
