Abstract
Can human rights impose positive duties to act, as well as negative duties constraining action? At first glance there seem to be strong reasons for wishing human rights could impose positive duties – such reasons include the promotion of welfare rights and the positive protection of liberty rights (e.g. police protection against assault). However, any attempt to construct rights-based positive duties threatens to dissolve hallmark features of rights. In this article the duty-properties possessed by uncontroversial rights-based negative duties are comprehensively analysed. Drawing on this analysis, a range of key properties is developed, including ‘regime-level right-holder universality’ and ‘many-to-one directedness’, as well as a ‘centres of pressure’ vision of rights, by which it is argued that positive duties can accord with the keystone commitments of rights-based moral theories. In so doing, a conceptual space for rights-based positive duties is defended.
Highlights
Can human rights impose positive duties to act, as well as negative duties constraining action? At first glance there seem to be strong reasons for wishing human rights could impose positive duties – such reasons include the promotion of welfare rights and the positive protection of liberty rights
But taking seriously the extensive challenges they lay down, in this article I vindicate the possibility of rights-based positive duties by exhaustively describing all the relevant properties of uncontroversial rights-based negative duties and arguing that positive duties can, through the adoption of key properties I develop below, successfully capture what is essential in these properties
Forward A contextual picture of human rights emerges from the foregoing arguments
Summary
Can human rights impose positive duties to act, as well as negative duties constraining action? At first glance there seem to be strong reasons for wishing human rights could impose positive duties – such reasons include the promotion of welfare rights and the positive protection of liberty rights (e.g. police protection against assault). In this article the duty-properties possessed by uncontroversial rights-based negative duties are comprehensively analysed. Drawing on this analysis, a range of key properties is developed, including ‘regime-level right-holder universality’ and ‘manyto-one directedness’, as well as a ‘centres of pressure’ vision of rights, by which it is argued that positive duties can accord with the keystone commitments of rights-based moral theories. HUGH BREAKEY universality’ and ‘duty-right sufficiency’) attached to well-accepted rights-based duties and determines they should be present in all rights-based duties. She completes the argument by showing that positive duties supporting welfare rights cannot possess these vital properties. But taking seriously the extensive challenges they lay down, in this article I vindicate the possibility of rights-based positive duties by exhaustively describing all the relevant properties of uncontroversial rights-based negative duties and arguing that positive duties can, through the adoption of key properties I develop below, successfully capture what is essential in these properties
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