Concept of Human Rights

Human rights are global practices that are aimed at protecting people from injustices emanating from political, legal and social spheres. The concept of human rights emerged after declaration by United Nations (1948) on realization that people were at times not given proper treatment and fair hearing concerning political, religious, and other social believes they hold. The concept was strengthened further by signing and documentation of various international treaties on human rights. Human rights concept is spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, (Glendon, 2001). Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 highlights various human rights which must be respected and protected, (Glendon, 2001). They include; right to security, due process, liberty, equality, and welfare among others.

Even though Universal Declaration of Human Rights included social right as part of human rights, it should be noted that this is not justifiable. Social rights are not part of human rights but rather goals. Unlike human rights, social rights are progressive. Social rights do not in reality provide fundamental interests as expected of human rights, (Beetham, 1995). Nickel supports this idea and illustrates that social rights expose governments and taxpayers to a lot of burden, (Nickel, 2006). Nickel supports his point further by suggesting that social rights do not qualify to meet human rights threshold as it is not feasible to developing countries, (Nickel, 2006). Human rights are expected to set critical and vital standards that all governments in both developed and developing should meet. This is the condition that makes social rights fail to be classified as human rights.

Human rights are complex but static. There have been desperate efforts by different political movements to expand list of human rights to address their main concerns. This explains the degree of dynamism in human rights. However, Cranton demands that a lot of dynamism must be avoided by strictly dealing with only extremely important issues, (Cranston, 1973). His position is supported by Orend who suggest that extreme dynamism may result into human rights inflations which may end up in production of fake human rights currency, (Orend, 2002). Cranston and Orend are supported by Dershowitz and Talbott who illustrate that human rights are very specific and problem solving in nature, (Dershowitz, 2004 and Talbott, 2005).

From the discussion above it is right to conclude that human rights are important in ensuring that inherent dignity of persons are respected and protected. Deciding on norms to classify as human right is a rather complex issue that requires some set measures to be strictly followed to ensure that no fake human rights currency is produced.