5 Conceptual Foundations of Human Rights

The rights set out in the UDHR and in the later conventional instruments each possess their own specific identity. However, almost all human rights have common features which confer on them a far-reaching conceptual unity. Philosophical thinking is able to construe human rights as a comprehensive whole whose unity derives from certain basic principles. From the legal viewpoint, it is more difficult to identify common features. The human rights movement is largely based on international treaties that are binding only for the states parties having committed...