Subjects → plural → there are two subjects active and passive

Subject who can claim a right and the subject who bears the duty or the obligation
In the formula A has a right to X against B by virtue of Y

A → to what extent language of human rights has extended to other kind of subjects

Contracts → human rights → similar structure to reflect on the content of the right and their
basis and scope that is their foundation
X → content of the right
We have a right that can be claimed to be because something

THE BASIS AND SCOPE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Interest → free choice
Free choice → autonomy positive or negative in some sets → liberty

● Misconceiving the basis and the legitimate scope of human rights has, at
times, undermined the doctrine’s legitimacy…
● Inflationism
● Human rights and social privileges
● What’s their purpose and why should they exist
Language of human rights can have some misconceptions → misconceiving basis of human
rights has been a risk
Without being able to determine that Y in the formula → we undermine the doctrine’s
legitimacy
If everything becomes a right → inflation

Human rights → justified in something like human dignity → something becoming a human
rights acquires a justified standing
Social privileges → we tend to forget the justification, they are more individually based

SOCIAL PRIVILEGES AND RIGHTS

Challenge is not define what is a human right but its practice

TO FIND IN NAME AND IN KNOWLEDGE → JUSTIFICATIONS TO HUMAN RIGHTS

Scope → to what extent is it legitimate → to what extent should the right of others
limit my original human right
INTEREST THEORY
Interests preexist human rights
Human rights are viewed as the mechanism through which these interests are best
identified and secured
John Finis and seven basic forms of human flourishing
● Life
● Practical Reason
● Play and recreation
● Spiritual experience
● Aesthetic experience
● Family
Martha Nussbaum (ten “basic goods”)

Problem with those theories is that they remain theories

However they don’t express all the reality

Bryan Turner
● Portect human beings from one another, as much as to provide for a more
flourishing human life
● We are frail and potentially vulnerable to one another

CHOICE THEORY APPROACH

● Individual liberty and equality
● Isaiah Berlin: positive and negative liberty
● Free exercise of choice as the foundation-stone for human rights
INTERDEPENDENT AND INDIVISIBLE → that is the same for autonomy
According to these theories choice or interest are or could be the way in which we justify
human rights in which we can answer the question not only of what human rights to we have
→ the X and the Y

ART. 29 udhr

(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his
personality is possible.

(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such
limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and
respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of
morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and
principles of the United Nations.

Limitation to human rights → not about entitlement but about exercising them. Not
about the entitlement, it will always be illegitimate to stop recognizing the rights of others.
What we can discuss are the limits of the exercise of the rights.

Human rights are actually sinalagmáticos → duties defined by the limits of the rights