Lecture 6: Philosophy and law Contemporary significance of human rights

3.3. Substantive categories of human rights 
The above section was concerned to analyse what might be termed the ‘formal properties’ 
of rights. This section, in contrast, proceeds to consider the different categories of 
substantive human rights. If one delves into all of the various documents that together 
form the codified body of human rights, one can identify and distinguish between five 
different categories of substantive human rights. These are as follows: (1) rights to life, 
(2) rights to freedom, (3) rights to political participation, (4) rights to the protection of the 
rule of law, and (5) rights to fundamental social, economic, and cultural goods. These 
rights span the so-called three generations of rights and involve a complex combination 
of both liberty and claim rights. Some rights, such as for example the right to life, consist 
of both liberty and claim rights in roughly equal measure. Thus, the adequate protection 
of the right to life requires the existence of liberty rights against others trespassing against 
one’s person and the existence of claim rights to have access to basic prerequisites to 
sustaining one’s life, such as an adequate diet and health-care. Other rights, such as social, 
economic, and cultural rights, for example, are weighted more heavily towards the 
existence of various claim rights, which requires the positive provision of the objects of 
such rights. The making of substantive distinctions between human rights can have 
controversial, but important, consequences. Human rights are typically understood to be 
of equal value, each right is conceived of as equally important as every other. On this 
view, there can exist no potential for conflict between fundamental human rights. One is 
simply meant to attach equal moral weight to each and every human right. This prohibits 
arranging human rights in order of importance. However, conflict between rights can and 
does occur. Treating all human rights as of equal importance prohibits any attempts to 
address or resolve such conflict when it arises. Take the example of a hypothetical 

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developing world country with severely limited financial and material resources. This 
country is incapable of providing the resources for realising all of the human rights for all 
of its citizens, though it is committed to doing so. In the meantime, government officials 
wish to know which human rights are more absolute than others, which fundamental 
human rights should it immediately prioritise and seek to provide for? This question, of 
course, cannot be answered if one sticks to the position that all rights are of equal 
importance. It can only be addressed if one allows for the possibility that some human 
rights are more fundamental than others and that the morally correct action for the 
government to take would be to prioritise these rights. A refusal to do so, no matter how 
consistent it may be philosophically would be tantamount to dogmatically sticking one’s 
head in the metaphorical sands. Attempting to make such distinctions is, of course, a 
philosophically fraught exercise. It clearly requires the existence of some more ultimate 
criteria against which one can ‘measure’ the relative importance of separate human rights.