CRIM 335 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Jeremy Bentham, John Diefenbaker, Public Space
7 Sep 2016
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In western democracies, human rights and civil liberties are an important. But a tension exists between the rights and freedoms held by individuals and the need to protect collective or community interests. Each society must strike a balance between individual and collective rights. Often, the individual rights that come under fire are those of minority in society. A human right = something that a person has a right to simply by virtue of being a human being. It is not a right that they have acquired through contract or some other legal mechanism; rather, it is something that is innate to all humans. Human rights generally refer to claims in which someone asserts that others must do something. Civil liberties has the concept of liberty at its core. When we are at liberty, or have freedom to do something, we are generally viewed as possessing a privilege.
