Hakam

1. HUMAN RIGHTS: Definition

Rhoda E. Howard (Human right,1):

* Human rights are rights that one holds merely by virtue of being human

* Human rights = individual rights

* All human beings hold all human rights equally (race, gender, religion …)

* Deprived only under very limited and prescribed conditions (eg. criminal conviction or necessities of state power in warfare)

Henkin (1989) states that the idea of human rights is related, but not equivalent to, justice, good and democracy. It is a political idea with a moral foundation which defines the relationship that should exist between the individual and society

Buergenthal (1988) defines human rights by reference to the law which governs human rights. He refers to "the law which deals with the protection of individuals and groups against violations by governments"

Legal scholars, in distinction to political activists, refer to:

* fundamental rights

* that are proclaimed in legal documents (constitutions or treaties)

* that are protected by constitutional courts or the ordinary judiciary.

* And, because these human rights still have the ambition of being basic and universal, there still is the link with the tradition of natural law.

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2. HEGEL’S LAWS

There are two kinds of laws, laws of nature and laws of right. The laws of nature are simply there, and are valid as they are. They cannot be gainsaid, although in certain cases they may be transgressed. In order to know laws of nature, we must get to work to ascertain them. for they are true, and only our ideas of them can be false. Of these laws the measure is outside of us. Our knowledge adds nothing to them, and does not further their operation. Only our knowledge of them expands. The knowledge of right is partly of the same nature and partly different. The laws of right also are simply there, and we have to become acquainted with them. In this way the citizen has a more or...