Abstract
The “rhetorical incorporation of human rights terminology” into domestic law is the central concern of this article. Over the last 20 years or so, countries have faced international pressure to conform to human rights standards in order to enjoy legitimacy. However, there is a huge gap between what is legalized as “human rights” in domestic laws and what is set forth as “human rights” in international human rights instruments. Based on this presupposition that a proper incorporation of human rights on the books is a prerequisite for putting them into practice, this study by adopting a Systems Thinking approach seeks to show that law as a soft system on the books is more than the name and number of rights. It is a complex whole whose function depends on not only the name and number of rights but also different features of rights and the relationships between them. To this end, law is conceived as a system of rights that has five major features including the “frame of reference,” “scope of rights,” “orientation of rights,” “enforceability of rights,” and “realizability of rights.” The way of codification of human rights with respect to each of these features makes a big difference in implementing human rights in practice. To develop a heuristic devise for evaluating the situation of human rights in current legal systems, the conceptual space of law as a system of rights is depicted in a matrix called a “Rights Fabric Matrix.”
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Notes
These countries include Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Kenya, Bangladesh, India, Colombia, Turkey, and Indonesia.
Number of unique combinations which are logically possible = 2k, where k is the number of conditions (i.e., dichotomous variables). In this case, there are five conditions (features) for four types of rights. Therefore, the number of possible types would be = 25 × 4 = 128
Max Weber developed a typology of legal systems based on two different criteria, i.e., the degree of rationality (rational/irrational) and the degree of formality (formal (internal) and substantive (external)).
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Acknowledgments
The first version of this paper was presented at the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) 2013 Conference at the University of York and I thank the participants of that stream for their helpful feedbacks. I am also extremely grateful to Professor Matthew H. Kramer, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law and Professor Massoud Chalabi, SBU, Department of Sociology, for their valuable comments on earlier version of this paper and their encouragement. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their constructive comments on this article.
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Chalabi, A. Law as a System of Rights: A Critical Perspective. Hum Rights Rev 15, 117–138 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-013-0297-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-013-0297-8