Do you have any rights?
And if so, where do they come from?
The United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights back in 1948. It was referred to by President Roosevelt as “the international version of the British Magna Carta for all mankind”, however it was not legally binding.
Taking the concept forward, Europe created the European Convention on Human Rights. It required that all those countries that accepted it would be answerable in law to the European Court of Human Rights. All 46 member states of the Council of Europe recognise this institution. It is one of the pillars of our way of life – ensuring that individuals and their rights are not a casualty of government overreach, protecting the rule of law and promoting democracy.
One rather unfortunate side-effect is how people claim their rights are being infringed over quite minor issues. One hears statements such as ‘it is my right to…(fill in the blanks) and that it is ‘against our rights not to be able to…’ (again, fill in the blanks). It has become the ‘go to’ defence for: anyone who feels that they are being prevented from doing something they want to do, or anyone who feels entitled to something that they don’t have.
Rarely is there acknowledgement that the rights of one person are inevitably and inextricably bound up with the responsibilities towards someone else. Name any single ‘right’ and I guarantee that there is a potential cost, and therefore a responsibility, to someone else.
For every claimed right, there’s always a cost to someone else.
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- Here are several examples to make the point:
- Your right to have a late-night party comes at the cost to your neighbour of noise and disruption to their lives.
- Your right to a particular government benefit comes at a cost to those who provide or pay for that benefit such as the taxpayer.
- Your right to free speech comes at a cost if it causes a public disturbance or spreads misinformation.
- Your right to build in your garden comes at a cost to your neighbour who may find their view spoilt or their house devalued.
- Even something as simple as retrieving a ball from a neighbour’s garden touches on someone else’s privacy rights.
These costs are usually overlooked by the person claiming their ‘right’.
In effect, the flip side of the coin which has ‘rights’ on one face, has on the reverse, ‘responsibilities’. The two are inseparable – and yet in these stories about the loss of an individual’s rights we seldom if ever hear about the relevant responsibilities.
For any community to work there are fundamental principles, of co-operation, of a willingness to agree on certain basic codes by which people can live together.
These codes require that all members of the community agree to certain behaviours in order for the system to work. These responsibilities cannot be negotiable or the system will be in danger of collapse. With these responsibilities come rights – not the other way around. It is these behaviours, these responsibilities that make the rights possible.
One way to examine whether or not this is true is to take an extreme position.
In an anarchic society there would be no rights possible because no laws could enforce them and any concept of rights would be meaningless. This society would be survival of the strongest, fittest, and most able. For rights to be possible in any shape of form requires that members of a community agree to uphold their responsibilities. For example, the responsibility to pay tax so that the community can pay for its needs to operate; it includes the responsibility to follow the laws of the community; and individually there are unwritten responsibilities based on cultural norms and behaviours.
My father, Nicholas Winton, believed that responsibilities precede rights. He believed that each one of us owes it to our community to help each other. He believed that we should be in the habit of giving first before expecting to receive anything. In fact he derived great pleasure from giving his time and energy to making things better for others.
This is something you will often hear older people talk about. When they have been through the experience of a full life, they will often reflect that it was the giving and connecting with people that gave them the most pleasure – rather than what they themselves were given.
As a society we must recognise that before we claim something as our right we should first check that we have fulfilled our responsibilities.
Are you taking your responsibilities seriously?