Framing the Human Rights Discourse: The Role of Natural Localism and the Power of Paradigm

Abstract

The major thesis of this chapter is that rights are local in origin and application and therefore not normally seen or accepted by states as natural or universal. Thus, there has always been a real-life difference between the application of rights (which in practice is almost always a local affair) and assertion of human rights (which can be a universal claim). One can see this when analyzing the precedents usually cited for our contemporary notion of human rights. For example, the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights (1791) were all, despite occasional language to the contrary, local and specific in their intent and application. That is they were promulgated for the benefit of some humans, and not all humans.