Human Rights: Concept, Definition, Evolution, Characteristics, Need, Limitations, Theories of Development of Natural Rights, Theories of Utilitarianism, Idealism, Socialism and Positivism

A ration-card clerk in Vashi cannot refuse to register your newborn because you belong to the wrong caste, and a police station cannot keep you in the lock-up for a week without producing you before a magistrate. You never earned these protections by passing an exam or paying a fee. You have them because you are a person. That idea, that some claims belong to every human being simply by being human, is the subject of this paper, and this first topic asks where the idea comes from, what it means and who has argued for and against it.

In two minutes

Human rights are claims that every person holds against the State and against one another because of being human; India defines them in s.2(1)(d) of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 as rights of life, liberty, equality and dignity guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants and enforceable by Indian courts.

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