Human Rights and Duties: Concept and Nature
What it is
Unit I builds the vocabulary of the paper: what a right is, who holds it and against whom, why human rights are universal and inalienable, and how natural law, positivism, liberal, Marxian, Gandhian, Dalit, religious, feminist and Indian thought justify or criticise them. UGC-NET tests it through attribution (thinker, book, idea), classification (which generation) and paired contrasts.
Core concepts
Basic concepts. The individual is the main rights-holder, groups (minorities, peoples) hold collective rights, and the state is the main duty-bearer. Non-state actors (corporations, armed groups, NGOs) can violate or advance rights; the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) pair the state duty to protect with the corporate responsibility to respect. Civil society is the space of associations between family and state. Berlin contrasted negative liberty (freedom from interference) with positive liberty (self-mastery); equality is formal or substantive; Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1971) derives justice from a veil of ignorance.
Human values: dignity and duties. The UDHR Preamble rests on "the inherent dignity" of all members of the human family, and Article 1 says all are "born free and equal in dignity and rights". Kant grounds dignity in treating humanity always as an end, never merely as a means; compassion (karuna) and virtues turn rights into conduct. Duties correlate with rights: in Hohfeld's scheme a claim-right correlates with a duty. UDHR Art. 29(1) states duties to the community, the African Charter (1981) lists individual duties, and India's Fundamental Duties (Art. 51A) came with the 42nd Amendment (1976), clause (k) with the 86th (2002).
Nature of rights and the naturalist–positivist debate. Human rights are universal (everyone, everywhere), inherent (held by being human, not granted by the state), inalienable (cannot be surrendered, though most may be lawfully restricted) and moral (valid even where law denies them, so they can judge law). Natural-law thinkers (Stoics, Cicero, Aquinas, Grotius, Locke) derive rights from nature or reason, prior to the state. Positivists reply that a right exists only if a law-giver posits it: Bentham called natural rights "nonsense upon stilts", Austin defined law as a sovereign's command backed by sanction, and Hart separated law as it is from law as it ought to be.
Universalism vs cultural relativism. Universalists hold that the same core rights bind every society; relativists say rights grow from particular, often Western, cultures. The American Anthropological Association (1947), the "Asian values" Bangkok Declaration (1993) and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990) voice relativist claims. The Vienna Declaration (1993, para. 5) set the official position: all rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated; regional particularities must be borne in mind, but every state must protect all rights.
Indian concepts. Dharma (root dhr, to sustain) is the duty-centred order of society, so the tradition speaks of obligations more than claims. Rajneeti is the statecraft of rulers guided by rajadharma, the protection and welfare (yogakshema) of subjects. Dandaneeti is the science of government by danda, the rod of sanction; Kautilya's Arthashastra lists it with anvikshiki, trayi and varta as the four branches of knowledge, and danda prevents matsyanyaya, the "law of the fishes". Nyaya is justice; Amartya Sen contrasts niti (rules and institutions) with nyaya (realised justice). Lokneeti, people's politics, was set against rajneeti by Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan.
Generations of human rights. Karel Vasak (1977) mapped rights onto the French tricolour. First generation (liberty): civil and political rights, largely negative and immediately enforceable (ICCPR). Second generation (equality): economic, social and cultural rights, realised progressively within resources (ICESCR Art. 2(1)). Third generation (fraternity or solidarity): collective rights to development, peace and a healthy environment. The scheme is a teaching device, not a hierarchy.
Liberal perspective. Locke (Two Treatises of Government): natural rights to life, liberty and estate, and government as a trust by consent that may be resisted if broken. Rousseau (The Social Contract, 1762): sovereignty of the general will. Thomas Paine (Rights of Man, 1791–92) defended the French Revolution against Burke. J.S. Mill (On Liberty, 1859): the harm principle, power over anyone against his will only to prevent harm to others. Classical liberalism means a limited state, private property and negative liberty; neo-liberalism (Hayek, Friedman, Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia, 1974) revives the minimal state and the market.
Marxian perspective. In On the Jewish Question (1844) Marx called the "rights of man" the rights of egoistic man separated from the community; political emancipation falls short of human emancipation. Law is superstructure on the economic base, so formal rights mask class exploitation; the Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) looks beyond "bourgeois right" to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Gramsci explained rule by hegemony, consent organised in civil society. Rosa Luxemburg rejected Bernstein's gradualism (Reform or Revolution) yet criticised Bolshevik repression, insisting freedom includes freedom for those who think differently.
Gandhian perspective. From Ruskin's Unto This Last (rendered as Sarvodaya) Gandhi took the good of all and the dignity of labour; from Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, refusal to obey unjust law; from Tolstoy, non-violent resistance (Tolstoy Farm, 1910). He saw the state as concentrated, organised violence and preferred decentralised village republics. Swaraj (Hind Swaraj, 1909) is self-rule over oneself, not merely home rule; wealth is held in trusteeship. In 1947 he told UNESCO that rights worth having flow from duty well done.
Dalit perspective. Jyotirao Phule wrote Gulamgiri and founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (both 1873). Sree Narayana Guru consecrated a Shiva idol at Aruvippuram (1888), breaking the caste monopoly over worship, and inspired the SNDP Yogam (1903): "one caste, one religion, one God for man". B.R. Ambedkar led the Mahad Satyagraha (1927), wrote Annihilation of Caste (1936), chaired the Drafting Committee that wrote in Art. 17 (untouchability abolished) and Art. 32, and embraced Buddhism (1956). He traced liberty, equality and fraternity to the Buddha and held that political democracy needs social democracy. Dalit thought claims rights against society too.
Religious and feminist perspectives. Religions ground dignity (vasudhaiva kutumbakam, Buddhist karuna, Jain ahimsa, the Christian imago Dei, the Sikh sarbat da bhala), yet can also justify hierarchy. Feminists show the classic rights were drafted for men: Olympe de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791) and Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Later feminists attacked the public–private divide ("the personal is political"); intersectionality (Kimberlé Crenshaw) links gender, caste, race and class. CEDAW (1979) and Vienna 1993 answer the critique.
Worked example
Classify six rights. Ask (1) who holds it, (2) what the duty-bearer must mainly do, (3) which value and generation follow.
| Right | Holder | Main duty | Value | Generation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freedom from torture (ICCPR Art. 7) | Individual | Refrain | Liberty | First |
| Fair trial (ICCPR Art. 14) | Individual | Refrain, provide courts | Liberty | First |
| Work (ICESCR Art. 6) | Individual | Provide progressively | Equality | Second |
| Education (ICESCR Art. 13) | Individual | Provide progressively | Equality | Second |
| Development (UN Declaration 1986) | Peoples | Cooperate internationally | Fraternity | Third |
| Healthy environment (Stockholm 1972) | Collective | Cooperate | Fraternity | Third |
Tally by generation: 2 + 2 + 2 = 6. Recount by value: two each of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. The fair-trial row shows a first-generation right still needs positive provision.
Common traps
- Inalienable is not absolute: most rights may be lawfully limited; only a few, such as freedom from torture, admit no exception.
- Vasak's order is liberty, equality, fraternity for the first, second and third generations.
- "Nonsense upon stilts" is Bentham's positivist attack, not a natural-law claim.
- Lokneeti is people's politics; Dandaneeti is Kautilya's science of sanction; matsyanyaya is the anarchy danda prevents.
- Ruskin gave Sarvodaya, Thoreau civil disobedience, Tolstoy non-violent resistance; do not swap them.
Speed technique
- Tricolour rule: Liberty = first = ICCPR; Equality = second = ICESCR; Fraternity = third = solidarity.
- Learn thinker–book pairs as units: Paine–Rights of Man, Marx–On the Jewish Question, Gandhi–Hind Swaraj, Ambedkar–Annihilation of Caste, Phule–Gulamgiri.
- Ask "against whom?": against the state is vertical; against society (Art. 17) is horizontal.
Check yourself
- Who mapped the three generations of rights onto liberty, equality and fraternity?
Show answer
Karel Vasak — in 1977, using the French tricolour. - Who called natural rights "nonsense upon stilts", and which school does he represent?
Show answer
Bentham, legal positivism — rights exist only when posited by law. - In Kautilya's scheme, what does danda prevent?
Show answer
Matsyanyaya — the "law of the fishes", where the strong devour the weak. - Which work by Ruskin did Gandhi render as Sarvodaya?
Show answer
Unto This Last — the good of all and the dignity of labour. - For Gramsci, how does a ruling class secure consent?
Show answer
Hegemony — consent organised in civil society, backed by coercion.
Try it: Human Rights and Duties: Concept and Nature questions
Real questions from the NET Human Rights bank on exactly this skill. Pick an answer to see the full solution — the intuition, the worked steps, the faster methods and the traps.
Who classified human rights into three generations corresponding to liberty, equality and fraternity, the watchwords of the French Revolution?
Show the answer and worked solution
Answer: option B
The jurist Karel Vasak proposed in 1977 that human rights had developed in three generations matching the three colours of the French tricolour.
In his scheme civil and political rights stand for liberty, economic, social and cultural rights for equality, and solidarity rights such as development and a healthy environment for fraternity.
So the three-generation scheme is Karel Vasak's, option B.
Gandhi's Sarvodaya, which spread the ideas of the good of all and the dignity of labour, was his rendering of:
Show the answer and worked solution
Answer: option D
John Ruskin's Unto This Last argued that the good of the individual lies in the good of all and that all honest labour has equal worth.
Gandhi read it in South Africa and paraphrased it in Gujarati under the title Sarvodaya, "the welfare of all"; from Thoreau he took civil disobedience and from Tolstoy non-violent resistance.
So Sarvodaya was Gandhi's rendering of Ruskin's Unto This Last, option D.
The principle that humanity must always be treated as an end and never merely as a means, often used to ground human dignity, is associated with:
Show the answer and worked solution
Answer: option A
Kant's categorical imperative, in its formula of humanity, requires that persons be treated always as ends in themselves and never merely as means.
Because persons have a dignity rather than a price, the formula is widely used to explain the idea of inherent human dignity.
So the ends-not-means principle is Immanuel Kant's, option A.
Which declaration, adopted by Asian governments in 1993 ahead of the World Conference on Human Rights, is commonly cited as voicing the 'Asian values' challenge to universalism?
Show the answer and worked solution
Answer: option C
Asian governments meeting at Bangkok in 1993, ahead of the Vienna World Conference, adopted the Bangkok Declaration.
It stressed national and regional particularities, state sovereignty and non-interference, which is why it is read as the cultural-relativist 'Asian values' position.
So the 1993 'Asian values' text is the Bangkok Declaration, option C.
The formula 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs', which looks beyond 'bourgeois right', appears in Marx's:
Show the answer and worked solution
Answer: option B
In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, written in 1875, Marx argued that "bourgeois right", an equal standard applied to unequal people, would persist in the first phase of communist society.
Only in a higher phase, he wrote, could society inscribe on its banners "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
So the needs formula appears in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, option B.
Answer above — every one shows its working.