Special Workshop Abstracts

Special Workshop Title:	Politics of Human Rights - Special Session on Rawls
Author:	Wilfried Hinsch, Markus Stepanians, Saarbrücken
Paper Title:	Human Rights and Duties of Assistance
Abstract:	Human rights play a major role in John Rawls’ conception of international justice. The sixth entry in his ‘basic charter of the Law of Peoples’ requires that peoples honour human rights (LP 37). These rights, thus, set a limit to a regime’s internal autonomy (LP 27, 42, 79f.). According to Rawls, the violation of human rights is, next to self-defence, one of only two reasons that are capable of justifying not only economic sanctions but, as a last resort, also ‘humanitarian interventions’ (LP 37f., 81, 93f. note). Only societies that honour the human rights of their members (and that are non aggressive) may consider themselves save from the threat of external sanctions and military intervention. They, and only they, can claim a right to war in self-defence (LP 92). Clearly, human rights matter. Given their significance for his theory, it is surprising how little Rawls says about the nature of human rights. It seems as if human rights (in his sense) were taken by Rawls as more or less firmly established elements of our moral common sense (cf. LP 27). All we get in terms of explanation from reading The Law of Peoples is basically this: First, human rights are neither constitutional rights nor other kinds of rights ‘that belong to certain kinds of political institutions’. Rather they set a ‘necessary, though not sufficient, standard for the decency of domestic political and social institutions’ (LP 79f.). From this we infer that they must be moral rights. Second, they are ‘universal rights’ in that ‘they are binding on all peoples and societies, including outlaw states’ (LP 80). Third, they are not supposed to be justified in terms of any particular comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine, because doing so would be divisive in a pluralistic world (LP 68, 81). Fourth, human rights are necessary conditions of social cooperation that are recognized by all decent regimes (LP 65, 68). Fifth, human rights are a proper subset of the basic rights and liberties protected by liberal societies (LP 68, 78f., 81). They are particularly ‘urgent rights’ (LP 79), among them the right to life, freedom from slavery, and liberty of conscience (LP 65, 79). More comprehensively, all rights specified in the articles 3 to 18 of the Universal Declaration from 1948 are human rights in the Rawlsian sense (LP 80n). Sixth, well-ordered societies are supposed to establish ‘new institutions and practices’ in order to protect human rights beyond their own borders (LP 48, 93). By and large, these six characterizations cover everything about human rights to be found in The Law of Peoples. In our contribution, we shall address three questions suggested by Rawls scant remarks on the subject. Firstly, if the human rights of the Law of Peoples are not constitutional or legal rights but universally valid moral rights, we need an explanation of what makes a particular normative standard a moral right. Proceeding from the idea that rights are normative devices to protect fundamental interests of individuals, we shall give such an explanation along Hohfeldian lines. Secondly, granted that human rights must not be justified in terms of controversial comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrines, there still must be some kind of justificatory basis that explains why they are of universal validity and why they are so important. After all human rights are contested. Thirdly, we shall discuss in which sense the protection and promotion of human rights should be ‘a fixed concern’ of all well-ordered societies (LP 48). More specifically, we shall address the problem of identifying the positive (third party) duties deriving from human rights and various ways of identifying the (individual and institutional) bearers of these duties.