Actualizing Human Rights

This book argues that ultimately human rights can be actualized, in two senses.
By answering important challenges to them, the real-world relevance of human
rights can be brought out; and people worldwide can be motivated as needed for
realizing human rights.
Taking a perspective from moral and political philosophy, the book focuses
on two challenges to human rights that have until now received little attention,
but that need to be addressed if human rights are to remain plausible as a global
ideal. First, the challenge of global inequality: how, if at all, can one be sincerely
committed to human rights in a structurally greatly unequal world that produces
widespread inequalities of human rights protection? Second, the challenge of
future people: how to adequately include future people in human rights and how
to set adequate priorities between the present and the future, especially in times
of climate change? The book also asks whether people worldwide can be motiv-
ated to do what it takes to realize human rights. Furthermore, it considers the
common and prominent challenges of relativism and of the political abuse of
human rights.
This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of human rights,
political philosophy and, more broadly, political theory, philosophy and the
wider social sciences.

Jos Philips is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Routledge Studies in Human Rights
Series Editors:
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UNC Asheville, USA
Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
and
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The Routledge Studies in Human Rights series publishes high quality and cross-
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Human Rights and US Foreign Policy

Prevarications and Evasions
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Politics of International Human Rights Law Promotion in

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Order versus Justice
Koldo Casla

Extending International Human Rights Protections to

Vulnerable Populations
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Fundamental Rights Challenges in Border Controls and

Expulsion of Irregular Immigrants in the European Union
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Edited by Sergio Carrera and Marco Stefan

Why Human Rights Still Matter in Contemporary World Affairs

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Actualizing Human Rights
Global Inequality, Future People, and Motivation
Jos Philips
Actualizing Human Rights
Global Inequality, Future People,
and Motivation

Jos Philips
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Jos Philips
The right of Jos Philips to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by
him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
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To the musicians
Contents

Acknowledgementsix

1 Introduction: two new challenges to human rights

and the question of motivation 1

PART I
Preparing the ground 9

2 Human rights: a conception 11

2.1 The book’s conception of human rights: human rights
and global justice 11
2.2 What are the minimum requirements of global justice? 13

3 Common challenges to human rights: the relativist

and the political pawns challenge 23
3.1 The relativist challenge 24
3.2 The political pawns challenge 30
3.3 To conclude 34

PART II
Novel challenges to human rights 41

4 The challenge of global inequality 43

4.1 A largely state-based world order and equal human
rights protection: a tension? 45
4.2 A largely state-based world order and human rights:
reconsidering our commitments 47
viii  Contents
4.3 Some objections 53
4.4 To conclude 56

5 The challenge of future people 63

5.1 Which claims can qualify as human rights claims? 65
5.2 How to prioritize among human rights claims –
including between the present and the future 67
5.3 Priority-setting among human rights: uncertainties,
and assumptions, concerning future people 76
5.4 To conclude 85

PART III
Getting to realization 95

6 The question of motivation: can people be

motivated as needed for realizing human rights? 97
6.1 How best to approach the motivational question 99
6.2 What motivates individuals to act in accordance with
human rights? 101
6.3 Some objections 105
6.4 To conclude 112

7 Conclusion 119

Bibliography123
Index129
Acknowledgements

This book has been a long time in the making. It is impossible to thank everyone
who helped me over the years and stimulated my thoughts, but some people I
want expressly to mention: Mary Biezeman-Roest, Marcus Düwell, Joel Anderson,
Koen Bavelaar, Monika Bobbert, Frans Brom, Rutger Claassen, Marie Göbel,
Carla Kessler, Peter Lawrence, Titia Loenen, Sem de Maagt, Henry Shue, Dick
Timmer and, at Routledge, Sophie Iddamalgoda, Andrew Taylor and the series
editors and anonymous reviewers, as well as Ashleigh Phillips, Amit Prasad and
Paul Martin. Thank you! (Of course, the shortcomings of the present book
remain entirely my own.) I am also grateful to audiences at various places in the
Netherlands and at Heidelberg and Graz, and I want to thank all my colleagues
at Utrecht University, who make the Ethics Institute such a friendly environment
and fertile place to work. Last but not least, I thank my students. Working with
you is always very enriching and enjoyable!
Hopefully, this book can to some extent offer, in the words of Seamus
Heaney, a ‘glimpsed alternative’ – one that, thankfully, at times already has a
foothold in reality.
JP
The Hague, Spring 2020
1 Introduction
Two new challenges to human
rights and the question of motivation

Many people regard human rights as the minimum requirements of global

justice. Human rights are meant, for now, in the colloquial sense that everyone
should be guaranteed freedom from torture, freedom to express themselves, as
well as being guaranteed enough food and a decent minimum standard of living,
etc. In such an everyday understanding, human rights will frequently first of all
be a moral notion rather than a juridical one. They would, more precisely, be a
minimum ideal (if I may use this somewhat strange expression, which combines
the elementary and the elevated) for the world. Moreover, this ideal would at
least implicitly include future people, inasmuch as it would usually sketch a
vision for both the present and the future.
Of course human rights, so understood,1 have faced outspoken criticisms. The
criticisms may, for example, be of a relativist nature and deny that human rights
are universally valid. Or they may be criticisms – which could be called ‘realist’2 –
saying that human rights are only pawns in games of political power. Such
fundamental criticisms are both important and prominent, and I will return to
them soon.
Many people, however, are in principle quite willing to embrace human
rights as an ideal for the world. This is true for many policymakers, lawyers,
academics, activists, and citizens in general. At the same time, many of them
are, although relatively favourably disposed towards human rights, by no means
uncritical about them. These people are the intended audience of this book. The
core of this book discusses two 21st-century challenges to human rights – as
they might be called – as well as, third, the arguably more practical question of
how to motivate people and institutions actually to realize human rights. None
of these three issues have received much discussion, while they are bound par-
ticularly to trouble the readers of this book. I will refer to the first challenge as
the challenge of global inequality: How, if at all, can there be a sincere commit-
ment to human rights, with their outspoken idea of the equality of all human
beings, in a world of great inequalities that are not coincidental, but structural?
The second challenge, which I will call the challenge of future people, is espe-
cially urgent in the current times of climate change: How adequately to include
future people in human rights, and how to set adequate priorities between the
present and the future? And how, in relation to these questions, to deal with key
2  Introduction
uncertainties concerning the future – such as how many people will live in the
future, what their interests will be, and what exactly may threaten those interests?
And third, there is the question of motivation: How actually to motivate people
and institutions to do what it takes to realize human rights in societies
worldwide?
The two challenges and the motivational question will be the subject of the
central chapters of the book (Chapters 4–6) and will be discussed in greater
detail in a moment. But let me first say something about two more all-out chal-
lenges to human rights that are very prominent in the current debates about
human rights and which will be the subject of Chapter 3 – a chapter that (along
with Chapter 2, which details the book’s conception of human rights) prepares
the ground for the central chapters.
These more all-out challenges are the relativist challenge and (what I will
call) the political pawns challenge. The former states that human rights lack uni-
versal validity, while the latter says that they are merely pawns in political
power games. These common and influential challenges need to be discussed,
among other things because they are linked to currently prominent debates about
the end/future of human rights.3 My argument will be that the relativist and
political pawns challenges, in the versions of them that matter most, can be
answered:4 relativism about human rights is implausible at a general level; and
where the political pawns challenge asserts, as it usually does, that more than
‘local’ repairs (my term) to human rights are needed, it is unconvincing. Thus,
as far as these challenges are concerned, there will in the end turn out to be no
reason to fear for the future of human rights. The next chapters will then ask
whether there is bad news for human rights (1) based on large global inequal-
ities or (2) based on difficulties arising from the justified claims of future people,
especially in the light of climate change; or, more practically, whether human
rights run into problems (3) because of what it takes actually to motivate people
and institutions to act in accordance with them. I will now elaborate on these
three issues.
First, the challenge of global inequality. Can one, in a world of vast inequal-
ities such as ours, be sincerely committed to human rights and to the ideal of
equality that they embody? More particularly, many of the inequalities in our
world are not accidental, but arise on account of key structural features of that
world. I am thinking above all of the important role that largely sovereign states
play in realizing human rights. Among other things, some states are much richer
than others and function much more smoothly and, as a result, large inequalities
are bound to arise between states in the realization of human rights.5 Can one,
then, accept and perhaps also (as is often the case) in certain ways promote and
help to maintain a world order where largely sovereign states are very prominent
and at the same time be seriously committed to human rights, that is, to the idea
that all human beings equally should have certain freedoms and rights? (For the
moment, the notion of human rights employed is still the rather colloquial notion
presented above.) Or is this hypocritical? I will call the commitment to human rights
hypocritical if it turns out to be mere talk, while one’s actual actions – which
 Introduction  3
help, perhaps, to maintain certain core structural features of the world – serve to
undermine the realization of human rights.
There is, on the face of it, no easy way out of this challenge. It is not as if one
can easily embrace alternatives for a largely state-centred world order, or even
clearly conceive what such alternatives might be. Nor can we easily give up the
idea that a sincere commitment to human rights entails a sincere commitment to
some robust form of equality and of equal treatment of all human beings – to
more equality, it may seem, than can be delivered by a largely state-centred
world order, with its inevitable differences in wealth and in quality of institutional
functioning. Thus, it is a real and large question whether a sincere commitment
to human rights can go together with being committed to and supporting a
largely state-centred world order.
The second challenge on which I want to elaborate, and which is particu-
larly urgent in an age of climate change, is the challenge of future people. If
one understands human rights in a colloquial sense, future people will, I have
said, be included (as subjects of concern, rights bearers, etc.), although
perhaps in an implicit way. But when one develops a more elaborate concep-
tion of human rights as an ideal for the world, many questions remain with
regard to the inclusion of future people6 – while including them is clearly vital
for a global ideal in an age of climate change. I mainly want to focus on the
urgent question of when to give priority to the future over the present, and
when the other way around.7 This is not to suggest that future and present are
always in conflict; thankfully that is not so. But sometimes there will be con-
flicts and, in such cases, determining which of the two should get priority is
often both fraught and difficult. Fraught, because if the future gets precedence,
those presently alive frequently stand to lose something real – not only super-
fluous luxuries, but also important freedoms and real opportunities for an
improved life. And this unlikely to be only a theoretical concern: considering
how much the interests of future people are in jeopardy because of climate
change, and considering how many people may potentially live in the future, it
seems that the future should sometimes win out.
Furthermore, the matter is not only fraught but also difficult. This is partly
because it seems to require clarity about a number of more general issues, which
are relatively unexplored, concerning how to set priorities among human rights
(how to take the numbers into account, how to treat particularly vulnerable
people, etc.). And it is also difficult because the future, often even more than the
present, is full of uncertainties. These are of various kinds – different sorts of
unknowns – and some of them seem rather intractable. The uncertainties pertain,
among other things, to what the numbers of future people will be and what their
interests will be, and also to what could threaten their interests and provide pro-
tection against these threats. All this contributes greatly to making the inclusion
of future people in human rights a hard problem. For, the urgency of climate
change does not mean that the future is necessarily always to get precedence.
There are also, for example, the needs etc. of people in the present and various
uncertainties concerning the future. Hence the challenge of future people.
4  Introduction
I will argue that we can, in the end, often deal satisfactorily with both the
challenge of global inequality and with that of future people. Frequently, a non-
hypocritical commitment to human rights is ultimately possible, even in a world
of great inequalities – although this cannot come easily. And human rights can
take future people into account in a justifiable way, even if, in times of climate
change, hard choices can by no means always be avoided.
Human rights will of course have to deal with other challenges as well.
Regarding these, this book will particularly focus on one more question, which
is arguably more practical and which I will call the question of motivation (or
the motivational question).8 Motivation is understood here in the sense of indi-
vidual people and institutions actually being brought to act and function in
accordance with human rights. More specifically, the point is that, for human
rights to be plausible as a global ideal, it must be possible for societies actually
to function in accordance with human rights. Moreover, they should be capable
of so functioning from generation to generation,9 and achieve this by acceptable
means, for example without using manipulation or certain kinds of coercion. At
the minimum, all this should be the case for societies that are as good as human
societies can be: if even such societies cannot function in accordance with
human rights, human rights certainly forfeit their plausibility as a global ideal.10
Whether societies worldwide can function in accordance with human rights is
a large question, and I will argue that historical evidence does in any case not
suffice to answer it affirmatively. I will start my own exploration with Richard
Rorty’s remark that, to establish and maintain a human rights culture, it is
enough to have generations of ‘nice … well-off, secure … students’.11 This sug-
gestion is promising but it also has, I will argue, a number of problems.
Improvements and alternatives will be considered. The chapter devoted to the
motivational question will be the most explorative one of the book. This ques-
tion has not, for all I can see, been much discussed. I will try to get a first sense
of the robust empirical evidence while also taking the relevant non-empirical
aspects (such as considerations of acceptability) into account.
The chapter will, in order to keep things manageable, be confined to motiva-
tion of individuals. But indirectly, institutions will be addressed in some ways as
well. For of course, a society’s functioning in accordance with human rights is
not least an institutional matter. Institutions such as the government, and various
organizations in civil society, should be moved actually to respect and realize
human rights. Yet individual support for human rights is, I will argue, both a
necessary condition and ultimately also a sufficient one for maintaining institu-
tional motivations.
What binds together the challenge of global inequality, the challenge of
future people and the (arguably more practical) question of motivation is that,
for all three, meeting them is very urgent if human rights are to be actualized. I
mean this in a double sense of ‘actualized’ (the two senses are, to be sure,
related): in the sense of not losing their relevance (and thus becoming somehow
‘un-real’) and also in the sense of actually getting individuals – and institutions –
into movement (‘action’). To elaborate, meeting these challenges is vital in
 Introduction  5
order to make sure, first, that human rights do not lose their plausibility as a
global ideal and, thus, in a way become irrelevant and closer to mere talk.
Human rights will lose their plausibility if certain pressing issues are not
addressed, among others those which are at the centre of this book: how (if at
all) can a genuine commitment to human rights be upheld in a world of vast and
structural inequalities? How (if at all) can future people and their claims find an
adequate place in human rights? And how (if at all) can societies actually function
in accordance with human rights?
Second, as for actualization in the other sense, of actually getting individuals
and institutions to act and function in accordance with human rights, this is what
the motivational challenge is expressly concerned with. And, in a somewhat
more complex way, the challenges of inequality and of future people are con-
cerned with it, too. For these two challenges must be met in order for it to be
reasonably expectable from people worldwide and from future people that they
will be motivated to act in accordance with human rights. After all, how can one
expect them to be motivated to act in accordance with human rights unless there
is at least a plausible account of how people from all places and times can
defensibly be included in human rights? It must be clear, then, how future
people could be included in human rights in a plausible way, and it must like-
wise be clear what a commitment to human rights entails in the face of vast
global inequalities.
The very broad thrust of this book will be as follows. Concerning the chal-
lenge of global inequality, I will argue that it is often incompatible with human
rights to endorse inequalities between persons in the protection of important
interests. But this is not always so and even structurally engendered inequalities
(engendered, for example, by a largely state-centred world order) are sometimes,
but only sometimes, compatible with human rights. Or so I will argue. One
should work towards better institutional arrangements whenever possible; and
only where this is not possible, a less demanding interpretation (to the extent
necessary) of the equality of all humans may be embraced.
Concerning the challenge of future people, a first outline will be defended of
a model for how to set priorities among human rights – a model that (among
other things) offers a tool to start thinking about priority-setting between the
present and the future. Many factors have a place in this model – not only the
importance of people’s interests, the number of people concerned as well as
various constraints to do with equal treatment, but also various uncertainties and
(in the background) certain assumptions about future people.
With regard to the motivational question, a hypothesis about the motivation
of individuals will be defended (starting from Rorty’s suggestion, mentioned
above). This hypothesis concentrates on people being safe in the fulfilment of
their important interests and being able to develop and exercise their key capa-
cities. This hypothesis also makes clear when a society can be effectively
ordered in accordance with human rights – while keeping in mind that this soci-
etal ordering should take place in acceptable ways, and that the claims of future
people need to be taken into account as well. The chapter will, in addition,
6  Introduction
briefly discuss some important and prominent suggestions about individual
motivation (such as ideas to do with nudging and self-interest-based motivation)
and their (in)compatibility with the chapter’s main hypothesis. The chapter’s
conclusion will be (although cautiously) that it is possible for individuals and
societies actually to realize human rights.
In the end, then, I will argue that human rights can meet various challenges,
most importantly those central to the book, the challenges of global inequality
and of future people, addressed in Chapters 4 and 5; and that important ques-
tions about human rights’ motivational capacity, to which Chapter 6 is devoted,
can be answered. Human rights can, in short, be actualized. Chapter 7, the
book’s conclusion, points the way to some things that remain to be further inves-
tigated in future research.
Chapters 2 and 3 are preparatory chapters. As I have already mentioned,
Chapter 3 tries to answer two common (indeed, arguably the most common) and
quite radical challenges to human rights, the relativist challenge and the political
pawns challenge. Chapter 2, for its part, will propose the conception of human
rights that I will use. To elaborate: this conception will in some ways develop
the colloquial understanding of human rights that has been proposed above –
that everyone should be able to count on having enough to eat, be guaranteed
freedom from torture and to express themselves, etc. In some ways, however,
the conception developed in Chapter 2 will take distance from this colloquial
understanding.
This book’s envisaged audience is, as remarked, broad: all those, be they
policymakers, lawyers, academics, activists or citizens in general, who are inter-
ested in and broadly sympathetic towards human rights, but certainly also crit-
ical towards them.12 At the same time, the book speaks more particularly to the
philosophical human rights literature. This is in line with regarding human rights
first of all as a moral category, specifically as an ideal for the world. Such an
understanding is, as indicated, often a central feature of a colloquial notion of
human rights. But the more complex and detailed conception of human rights
developed in the next chapter will also hold on to this understanding.
In addition to the philosophical human rights literature, I will also speak,
more broadly, to the philosophical literature in global and intergenerational
justice. For each of the three issues central to the book there is, I believe, a gap
in this literature. I will come back to this in the chapters concerned, and will
only give a brief indication now. As for the challenge of global inequality, it is
fairly common ground in the literature that human rights protection should be
equal everywhere on earth. The literature frequently regards human rights as
global minimum standards of justice; and only when equal human rights protec-
tions have been secured does the literature tend to regard differences between
individuals in the protection of their interests as potentially compatible with
justice. That the requirement of globally equal human rights protection has to
reckon with certain structural features of the world that may be in tension with it
is not much discussed.13 Nor, consequently, is the question addressed of how – if
at all – this tension could or should be resolved.
 Introduction  7
The challenge of future people is confronted, first, with the fact that the philoso­
phical literature has not been much concerned with questions of priority-setting
among human rights. To be sure, all questions of justice are, one may say, about
priority-setting, but priority-setting and human rights have not often been
brought together. Moreover, if certain problems with regard to future people
have, for instance in the context of climate change, received ­discussion – such as
various uncertainties and assumptions about future people’s needs and
numbers – the discussion has not usually been in the context of human rights.14
The motivational challenge, finally, is vast and in very important respects
interdisciplinary. It has received some attention in the philosophical literature,
but hardly, as far as I can see, specifically with regard to human rights (apart
from passing remarks such as Rorty’s, mentioned above); and there is even
less discussion striving to consider both robust empirical evidence and requirements
of acceptability.15
Thus, the book strives to open new ground both with regard to the challenges
of global inequality and future people and with regard to the motivational ques-
tion.16 Before turning to the challenges, I will now, in Chapter 2, develop the
book’s conception of human rights. This is necessary preparatory work. But it is
relatively technical, and some readers may prefer to skip this chapter and turn to
Chapter 3 directly.

Notes
1 In Ch. 2 below this colloquial notion of human rights will be developed and revised,
and its relationship to the post-WWII practice of human rights will be discussed.
2 See e.g. Caney (2005), pp. 7ff.
3 Cf. authors such as Bob (2019); Douzinas (2007); Hopgood (2013); Kennedy (2004).
4 While my discussion of these challenges aims, of course, to be adequate in the light of
the literature, it is above all in Chs. 4, 5 and 6 that the discussion strives to be novel.
5 These remarks may seem to commit me to a particular view on the causes of poverty,
etc. But I do not think that they do; see Ch. 4.
6 It may be noted that the inclusion of future people is often doubtful in the post-WWII
practice of human rights. For the relation of this book’s conception of human rights to
that practice, see Ch. 2.
7 Philosophers, and also lawyers, have often concentrated on other questions about
future people, such as the question of whether they can have entitlements if they do
not yet exist and if it is not yet clear concretely what person could be harmed, bene-
fited or (dis)respected. Cf. Ch. 5.
8 To be sure, the motivational ‘question’ is a challenge for human rights. I call it a ‘question’
to indicate that it may be of a different kind – more practical, less fundamental – than
the other two challenges. But that itself is a moot point and not much may in the end
depend on whether it is so.
9 ‘Generation’ is meant colloquially here, not in any technical sense.
10 It may be thought it should also be possible for (at least certain) less ideal societies.
Cf. Section 6.4.
11 Rorty (1994), p. 127.
12 I take it that most readers of this book will not to such an extent be critical towards
human rights as to be drawn to the relativist and political pawns challenges. But these
challenges are still so prominent and important that they warrant discussion.
8  Introduction
13 It should be noted that the challenge of global inequality, as I articulate it here, is
different from the question of whether human rights are ‘enough’ (cf. Moyn 2018).
Concerning the question whether they are ‘enough’, Chapter 2 will make it clear that I
regard human rights as articulating only the minimum requirements of global justice.
14 Henry Shue, one of the pioneers of philosophical debates about human/basic rights,
also has one of the best discussions of what may be called precaution in the context of
climate change (Shue 2010). But even he does not specifically discuss this in the
context of (human) rights. Many other discussions, such as Caney (2009), are very
brief, some exceptions being Bos and Düwell (2016) and Düwell, Bos and Van
Steenbergen (2018).
15 One example of an outstanding contribution is Judith Lichtenberg’s (2014) book on
poverty (Ch. 10). Some other examples can be found in Birnbacher and Thorseth (2015).
16 By contrast, Ch. 3 (on the relativist and political pawns challenges) does not aim to
break new ground, but only strives to argue in a way that is adequate in light of the
existing philosophical literature.
This book will typically engage in ideal theory, which thinks about possibilities
and ideals taking as a given how human beings are (with the best possible upbringing
and education, etc., and more generally living under the best possible institutions),
but not taking changeable features of humans and of the world as given (cf.
­Sections 4.2 and 6.1 below). As will become clear below, human rights will often
have particularly severe problems if certain issues cannot even be solved in ideal
theory. I will concentrate on ideal theory when thinking about the (in)compatibility of
human rights and a largely state-based world order; about how to set priorities among
human rights, including human rights of future people; and about the question of
whether societies worldwide can function in accordance with human rights. Yet these
problems evidently, and very importantly, also have relevance for the world in the
21st century, with its vast inequalities, rapid climate change and widespread non-
observance of human rights.
Part I

Preparing the ground

2 Human rights
A conception

So far, a rather colloquial conception of human rights has been used. According
to this conception, human rights are about ensuring that everyone is free from
torture, can freely express their views, has enough to eat, etc.1 This is too thin,
however, to serve as a basis for the rest of the book. Therefore, the present
chapter will develop in detail what this book’s conception of human rights will
look like, and also justify the conceptual choices made. I will proceed in two
steps. First, the book’s general conception of human rights will be proposed, that
is, its broad answer to the question of what human rights are. In one sentence:
human rights will be regarded as the minimum requirements of global justice,
and the content of these requirements as having to do with (reliably) protecting
the very important interests of all human beings (Section 2.1). I will explain why
human rights are understood in this way and also how, in this understanding,
they relate to the post-World War II practice of human rights. Second, I will go
into the contents of human rights, further than that they have to do, as said, with
protecting the very important interests of all human beings (Section 2.2): What,
more precisely, is a human right and what, approximately, could a plausible list
of human rights look like? Who bears duties with regard to human rights? And
how weighty are human rights? The discussion will be confined to those ele-
ments of the book’s human rights conception that urgently need clarification as a
basis for the discussions in Chapters 3, 4 and 5.2

2.1 The book’s conception of human rights:

human rights and global justice
This section presents the main thrust of this book’s conception of human rights.3
Human rights will be understood as the minimum requirements of global justice,
and the content of these requirements concerns the protection of very important
interests of all human beings.4
I start off with a more methodological point. There are two requirements that
any plausible conception of human rights will, I believe, have to meet. I will first
briefly state them and then explain and discuss them further. First, a conception
of human rights will in some way have to be continuous with everyday usage
(even though it may at the same time be considerably revisionist towards it, as
12  Preparing the ground
will become clear). Second, there has to be clarity about the role(s) that a con-
ception of human rights is supposed to fulfil, as different roles will ask for
different contents of a conception.
To further clarify these requirements and why they are sensible, it may be
helpful to take a look at another complex concept, autonomy.5 (I might also have
taken, say, democracy.6) I start with the first requirement, that of a conception
being to some extent continuous with daily usage; in discussing it, my stance on
the second requirement will become clear as well.
‘Autonomy’ as a term in daily life – I mean in policy making, education,
medical practice, etc. – is used to refer to very many different ideas (which are
often, to be sure, not very clearly articulated). Yet if someone were to say: I am
now going to call by the name of autonomy what everyone else calls, say,
privacy, then this would completely ‘change the subject’7 and only cause confu-
sion. Worse even than the confusion, the subject would also be changed away
from what got people interested in a discussion allegedly about autonomy in the
first place – they were presumably interested in some of the ideas that are often
referred to by that term.8 Similarly, most activists, policymakers, lawyers, etc. are
interested in human rights because of the ideas, etc. connected to the term in
daily usage or, more specifically, in the post-World War II practice of human
rights.9 A conception of human rights had better not change the subject entirely
away from that.10
Yet what exactly that means – not entirely to change the subject – is by no
means crystal-clear. Taking the example of autonomy again, I think that one
could sensibly say: I am going to discuss autonomy in one of the roles with
which the term is often connected, for example in the role where a lack of auto-
nomy is a necessary condition for forced admission to a psychiatric clinic – and
autonomy then refers to something like the ability to make one’s own choices.
Here, a host of possible meanings of autonomy are left aside and, furthermore,
the analysis might (by drawing, for example, on philosophical debates about
autonomy) go on in a way that is considerably revisionist vis-à-vis certain prac-
tical usages. For example, the analysis might go on to say that, in the role of its
lack being necessary for forced admission to a mental health institution, auto-
nomy should be understood very differently than it usually is when people con-
sider this role; or one might even doubt that a lack of autonomy could, in any
understanding of autonomy (which preserved some kind of connection with ‘the
ability to make choices of one’s own’), be a suitable necessary condition for
forced admission to a psychiatric clinic.
I propose something quite similar for human rights. I want to understand
human rights as the minimum requirements of global justice, where I conceive
of justice in the Rawlsian sense of being the main virtue of social institutions (in
this case of the global institutional framework, whether it be a world order con-
stituted by largely sovereign states or some other kind of world order);11 and
minimum requirements of justice refer to the requirements of justice that have to
be fulfilled in order for the world to be just in broad outline, albeit not entirely.12
Content-wise, I understand human rights as, very broadly, having to do with the
 Human rights: a conception  13
protection of the important interests of all human beings – an understanding that
is, being put in this general way, a recognizable and probably quite central part
of the post-World War II practice. Furthermore, seeing human rights as the
minimum requirements of global justice is a recognizable part of the practice as
well. Indeed, I would say that it is a recognizable part of the practice that (1) an
important role of human rights is to want to offer a minimum moral ideal for the
world (indeed, the main criterion that a global institutional order would have to
meet); and also that (2) nothing else that human rights possibly also want to offer,
no other role, should undercut this role. It is this role, and this understanding of
human rights as being about the protection of everyone’s very important interests,
that the present book takes up. This means that this book’s conception of human
rights is, in the way discussed above, continuous with the post-World War II prac-
tice and that, as such, it may be said not to change the subject. At the same time,
this conception of human rights is not being offered as the best interpretation – or
even an interpretation – of the practice or of a part thereof.13
The further development of this conception of human rights – human rights
understood first of all as offering the minimum requirements of global justice and
as having something to do with the protection of all people’s important interests –
will be undertaken in Section 2.2. It will take its main lead from existing
­philosophical debates about justice.14 I will discuss how, more particularly, to
understand what a (moral) right is, and what a human right morally understood is
(our conception, taking its lead from debates on justice, may be called moral); what
a plausible list of human rights might look like; how one may think of the relation
between rights and duties, and who are plausibly duty bearers; and I will again
­consider the weight of human rights. This will prepare the ground for discussing (in
Chapter 4) how the book’s conception of human rights is to deal with equality of
­protection among human beings, for discussing (in Chapter 5) how it is to deal with
the inclusion of future people and for investigating (in Chapter 6) whether this con-
ception in addition fulfils certain plausible motivational constraints.15
It bears emphasizing that nothing in these discussions and investigations is
meant, as it stands, as a policy proposal, as direct guidance for activists or as a
proposal for revising the law. Rather, what I envisage is to make a contribution
to debates in what John Rawls calls the ‘background culture’ of a society – in
universities, the media, schools, as well as in reflective discussions among
diverse kinds of practitioners; it is in this sense that this book may be said to
want to offer orientation for the practice.16 It is hoped that its contribution will
be worthwhile for people from a wide variety of walks of life and backgrounds.

2.2 What are the minimum requirements of global justice?

Many questions arise if one regards human rights as the minimum requirements
of global justice. This section will deal with three that are central: first, with
what, more precisely, are the contents of these requirements (that is, on the
‘recipient side’; I will deal both with what a moral right is and with what a
plausible list of human rights would, approximately, look like); second, with
14  Preparing the ground
how human rights relate to duties and with who are plausibly duty bearers
regarding human rights; third, with how weighty human rights are. This sec-
tion’s aim is primarily to clarify (rather than defend) the conception proposed on
the points where clarity is needed for Chapters 4, 5 and 6.17 I will always strive,
to the extent possible, to take positions that are not highly dependent on contro-
versial theoretical commitments and that could thus be endorsed by people from
a wide variety of backgrounds.

Content (i): What is a human right?

What, content-wise, are the minimum requirements of global justice about (on
the ‘recipient side’)? I will begin by asking what a human right is, and take my
lead from Henry Shue. Shue states that what he calls a moral right18 ‘provides
the rational basis for a justified demand that the actual enjoyment of a substance
be socially guaranteed against standard threats’ (italics mine).19 What I want to
take from this, rather freely, is that moral rights are, at the core, about reliably
protecting people’s interests.20 (These interests are the ‘substances’; I will come
back to the notion of reliability in a moment.) Human rights, more particularly,
are about reliably protecting very important interests. It is their concern with
very important interests and, one may add, very important protections of them,
that makes human rights so morally weighty and central.21
I want to add that, with human rights, the very important interests in question
should concern broad categories of people,22 everywhere and possibly also
always.23 If this were not so, and if they concerned interests that were only applic-
able to a small part of humanity, we would stray so far from the everyday usage of
‘human rights’ that we would make the notion unrecognizable. At the same time,
however, interests of smaller categories of people can always also qualify as
subject matters of human rights by being brought under more general headings.
For example, the interest of the highly musically gifted in developing their musical
capacities to some minimally adequate extent can be subsumed under the interest
of people to develop their creative abilities to some minimally adequate extent.
This latter interest is evidently applicable to very broad categories of people, and
attending to it will, in the case of the highly musically gifted, inevitably imply that
their musical abilities should be developed to some minimally adequate extent.
Shue says that a moral right is about ‘guarantees’. Having a right means it
shouldn’t be possible that one’s ‘enjoyment of a substance’ is taken away at will
or overnight: there ought to be (well-enforced) laws or other suitable institutions
(such as, in certain cases, customs) to protect the interest in question against
threats.24 In my words, we are talking about reliable protection of very important
interests. This is plausibly an essential part of what a right is. Equally important,
meanwhile, is that the guarantee/­reliable protection cannot be provided in the
face of everything. According to Shue, it is against ‘standard threats’, which
means something like predictable and prevalent threats.25 To be sure, this
remains rather vague and Chapter 5 will explicitly raise the question of protec-
tion against just which threats is required as a matter of human rights.
 Human rights: a conception  15
In sum: human rights, understood as the minimum requirements of global
justice, state that certain reliable protections of very important interests ought to
be provided. The interests in question concern broad categories of people every-
where and (possibly) also always. (Whether the protection of these interests
should also be equal everywhere and always will be the explicit subject of the
next chapter.)
But are there human rights so conceived? The answer will be affirmative, I
will assume, if (1) there are very important interests, which are consequently
worthy of reliable protection, and if (2) there are suitable duty bearers for pro-
tecting them. I will ask below whether (1) and (2) are indeed the case, and will
conclude by revisiting the weight of human rights, in order to see as clearly as
possible what is at stake in the (non-)realization of human rights.

Content (ii): What human rights (if any) are there?

Are there any interests so important that they are worth reliably protecting (and
for which very important protections can be provided, otherwise it is all no use;
there is, to take an extreme example, no human right to immortality)? To show
that some interest, for example freedom of speech, is a very important interest,
one can point to its instrumental importance for, for example, a well-functioning
society – in the light of governance-related and economic considerations, etc.26
But one will also, and possibly above all, point to its intrinsic importance, which
is perhaps best demonstrated by considering what happens to a human being
when they have or, conversely, do not have freedom of speech (to remain with
the same example): what this means for their ability to flourish, to be agents, to
reach their ends, etc. In addition, one needs to consider certain objections, for
example that (instrumentally) a prosperous society could be obtained without
freedom of speech; or that (intrinsically), on some conceptions of the person,
flourishing of the individual does not require freedom of speech; or that some
forms of flourishing are not all that important in the first place.
In short, my suggestion is that the main way to establish the importance of an
interest is by examining human experiences (broadly understood): by showing –
which will usually be through narrating, cf. also Chapter 3 below – what
happens to people if these interests (to be able freely to express one’s opinion, to
have enough food, etc.) are, positively, reliably protected or, negatively, not reli-
ably protected.27 If the account does not convince, the main response must be to
try to show again, and now in a more compelling way, how important it is reli-
ably to protect a certain interest.28 Thus, the same approach can be used to estab-
lish the importance of a given interest and that of a given protection.29 It will
involve empirical elements (concerning what happens if certain protections are
or are not in place, etc.), but also normative judgement (for example, concerning
what is important enough).
Let us now ask what an adequate list of human rights would look like.30
Usually, very important interests such as the following are among the subject
matters of human rights: being alive, being free from torture, being free to
16  Preparing the ground
express one’s views;31 freedom to engage in various forms of political participation;
being able to have adequate food and work, and to be healthy. (These are,
respectively, civil freedoms/rights, political freedoms/rights and socio-economic
freedoms/rights; see e.g. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR].32)
The main question here is not what precise list could plausibly fit with the
conception of human rights developed above, nor whether this list would exactly
conform to the UDHR. The question is, rather, what the broad outline of a list
fitting with this book’s conception would be, and how ambitious it would plaus-
ibly be.33
On the one hand, there may be serious problems with ambitious global ideals
such as worldwide equality of opportunity. But these go beyond the most plaus-
ible articulations of human rights as a global ideal anyway, not least because
human rights, as I understand them, only aim to articulate the main requirements
of living together on a global scale. On the other hand, however, it seems
unlikely that, by the criteria proposed above for there to be particular human
rights (the importance of certain interests and of reliably protecting them; and
the availability of suitable duty bearers, more about this shortly), the list would
be very short. Both instrumentally and substantively, it is very important, not
only to be safe and to be immune from torture, but also, among other things, to
be able to participate in the decision-making in one’s political community, to be
healthy and to be able to have work; and consequently it is very important to
have good protections of these interests in place.

Who bears duties with regard to human rights?

Are suitable duty bearers available for reliably protecting such interests? As indi-
cated, I believe that, in order to make a case that there are any human rights, and
more particularly that there are certain specific human rights, one needs not only to
make the case that protecting the interests in question is very important, and that
reliable protection of them can be provided at all; one also needs to show that
certain parties have a duty to provide reliable protections of these interests.34
Are there such parties? For some duties, namely those not to actively violate
human rights oneself (negative duties), the answer seems easy: everyone is a
duty bearer. Now, Henry Shue distinguishes three kinds of duties that go with all
human rights – if these duties did not go with them, we would have a very
­revisionary understanding of not only, say, the right to food (commonly called a
socio-economic right), but also of such a right as that to freedom from torture
(commonly called a civil right).35 First, there are, as said, duties that one respects
human rights oneself (negative duties), which apply to every agent;36 second,
there are duties to protect people against (potential) violations by third parties
(intermediate duties); third, there are duties to ensure that human rights are more
fully realized (positive duties).37
With regard to the intermediate and positive duties, there are at least three
general considerations bearing on who should bear a duty.38 These considerations
will be widely acceptable and do not depend on highly theoretical background
 Human rights: a conception  17
assumptions. The first consideration is the causal contribution that an agent has
made to the objectionable setbacks to an interest.39 The second is the capacity
that an agent has to contribute effectively to a better protection of an interest, or
even (although this may not be a necessary condition for having a duty) to con-
tribute at little cost to themselves.40 And third – and related to the first two con-
siderations – there must not be reasons why a certain attribution of duties can be
deemed grossly unfair. To illustrate: an institutional scheme will always dis-
tribute duties in a way that may also have been different,41 but the important
thing is that the attribution is defensible on the basis of considerations such as
causal contribution and capacity, and that more generally it does not treat agents
differently without good reason.
Now, there will, by these criteria, almost always be parties that should bear
duties, also when we are talking about intermediate duties (to protect from viola-
tion by third parties) and positive duties (to ensure a fuller realization of human
rights). Fulfilling these duties will provide protections, and it should be added
that many parties also can and should, by the criteria just outlined, provide
­reliable protections – in the sense, explained above, that these protections can be
counted on because they have been adequately institutionalized.42
In sum, there will be – as we have seen – several interests that are very
important and worth protecting, and there will generally also be suitable duty
bearers. Hence, there will be (several particular) human rights.

How weighty are human rights?

As said, I will conceive of human rights as the minimum requirements of global
justice. More particularly, this means that, if human rights were fulfilled every-
where, there would only be minor injustices left in the world and no great injus-
tices anymore.43 Human rights thus articulate what is the main part of global
justice. (This is not to say that human rights are everything there is to justice. If
one person has a palace and the other one has a modest house,44 this could in
some cases certainly be unjust, even though there may not be any human rights
problem.)
Furthermore, as explained, I follow John Rawls in thinking that justice is the
‘first virtue’ of social institutions: such institutions must, whatever other features
they have, first and foremost be just. Thus, if human rights are such an important
part of justice, they have a great deal of weight. This is so in the double sense
that, first, someone who does not fulfil their human rights duties will, because of
that, be very blameworthy;45 and that, second, fulfilling human rights should
usually get a lot of priority over other considerations.46
Can human rights really make good on this pretension of weightiness? I think
they can, because, in line with what was said above, they will encompass all
very important interests for which it is at all possible to provide some reliable
protection. For example, they will also encompass the interests of small categories
of people (for example, those who are highly gifted in some respect), and not only
some small part of those interests.47 Thus, if one cares about protection of very
18  Preparing the ground
important interests, one can turn to human rights to see what protections should
most importantly be provided. This certainly supports the claim of human rights
to weightiness.
In short: human rights, whose centre is the reliable protection of the very
important interests of all humans, outline an ideal of a world with no great injustices
left. Whether they can stand in the face of common relativist criticisms and criti-
cisms that they are subject to political abuse will be the subject of the next chapter.

Notes
1 It may not be exactly clear whose understanding this colloquial understanding is. But it
seems safe to suppose that many people might at least embrace something like this thin
understanding, albeit perhaps also further and more specific understandings in addition.
2 The present chapter involves many relatively technical debates, more so than other
chapters. Some readers will want to know where the book stands on those and, there-
fore, a relatively extensive footnote apparatus has been added. Those not interested in
the technicalities may safely ignore it.
3 By a conception, I mean an answer to the question of what human rights are. (A
concept, by contrast, would refer to the understanding of human rights that is already
involved in the question ‘What are human rights?’). Cf. Rawls (1999a), p. 5.
4 In a certain sense, it may be better to speak of ‘broad categories of people everywhere
and (possibly) also always’, rather than ‘all human beings’. See Section 2.2 below.
5 In thinking about the methodological matters now under discussion, I have learnt
much from G. Dworkin’s (1988) discussion of autonomy, specifically pp. 7–12.
6 Particularly inspiring in this regard is R. Dworkin about democracy as an ideal
(Dworkin 2000, Ch. 4).
7 Griffin (2008), p. 3.
8 Years ago, I went to a talk by a well-known Dutch historian, who was going to
discuss the American elections. He managed not to say a single word about them, and
I left the talk with a bit of a hangover – even though some of the things he did address
were worthwhile.
9 People’s interest will, to be sure, not always be in this practice. For example, some
philosophers and lawyers may be interested in the natural rights tradition, which goes
back much further than the post-WWII practice.
10 It is a non-trivial question what the post-WWII practice of human rights is. There are
several questions here: What are the boundaries of this practice? What is its most
important content? What does it mean to call it a practice (or an ‘emergent’ practice,
as it is called by Beitz 2009)? It is beyond the present scope to elaborate on all this. I
will broadly understand the post-WWII practice of human rights as referring to the
actions and words of policymakers, lawyers, activists, academics, etc. and citizens in
general, in which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a number of
treaties and institutions are central as points of reference. (Examples of these treaties
and institutions are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)
and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the European, American and African
regional human rights regimes with their treaties and courts.) As such, this practice is,
it should be stressed, not exclusively juridical, nor perhaps even primarily. And of
course, many elements of the practice are subject to contestation.
11 Rawls famously puts it as follows:
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A
theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue;
 Human rights: a conception  19
likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be
reformed or abolished if they are unjust.
(1999a, p. 3)
Rawls (1999b) does not want to speak of global justice; but I believe that offering
the minimum standards of global justice is an important role of human rights (and one
they may well be good at, cf. note 14 below) and that this role can help us understand
and think about other important roles of human rights, such as their being standards
for governments, causes for activism, grounds for international concern and, in cases
of grave violation, possible grounds for forceful intervention.
12 Underlying this idea is a sufficientarian idea of justice, which is not Rawls’s. I inter-
pret this idea as saying that there are particularly urgent reasons to provide a thresh-
old level of goods, while the reasons change in kind and are less weighty once the
threshold has been reached. Cf. Shields (2012), p. 101 and note 43 below.
13 Indeed: this book’s conception is not offered even as an interpretation of a part of the
practice – except that it maintains that certain elements (e.g. wanting to offer a
minimal moral ideal for the world) are part of the practice and have a certain kind of
importance in it; but there is no pretension of offering an exegesis even of these parts
of the practice.
In not aiming to interpret the practice, my position differs from the one Charles
Beitz (2009) is often held to take. But in holding that a conception of human rights
has to maintain some relation with the post-WWII practice, my position may also be
at variance with some – although certainly not all – ‘naturalistic conceptions’ of
human rights (as Beitz calls them), according to which human rights are those rights
that human beings have simply in virtue of being a member of the species. It is
beyond the present scope to elaborate on this.
14 Many philosophers embrace, although almost always rather implicitly, the role of
human rights of offering an account of the minimum requirements of global justice,
e.g. Pogge (2008); Caney (2010); cf. also Nagel (2005); Miller (2007); Humphreys
(2010); and this is the literature to which my account speaks and which it tries to take
a step further, mainly by explicating what human rights as an account of the minimum
standards of global justice could look like. I believe that human rights, if suitably
developed, may provide a clearly attractive account, when compared to very minimal
and very ambitious articulations of the minimum requirements of global justice. To
defend this attractiveness would be a large undertaking and is not the aim of this book –
although the beginnings of a defence will be provided in Section 2.2.
15 Cf. note 17 below.
Ch. 3 discusses whether the ideal of minimum global justice can withstand relativ-
ist criticisms as well as the charge that it is merely a political pawn. As will become
clear, the latter charge addresses itself more to human rights as they are found in the
post-WWII practice than to the conception employed in the rest of the book.
16 For the notion of the ‘background culture’ of a society, see Rawls (2007), pp. 6–7. Relat-
edly, it should be noted that, if justice ideals are articulated in terms of moral rights (as I
will do below), there is no presumption at all that juridical rights should directly mirror
these. Buchanan (2013) rightly objects to such a ‘mirroring view’, as he calls it.
17 Here is why the chapters that follow require clarity about the three questions just
mentioned. First, one knows too little if one only knows that human rights realization,
which has something to do with the protection of the important interests of all human
beings, is the content of the minimum requirements of global justice. Not until one
has a clearer idea of what a human right is can one see how human rights are
­challenged by vast global inequalities (Ch. 4); by the need to take future people into
account, including the extra claims and priority-setting problems that this entails
(Ch. 5); and by possible problems of actually motivating people and arranging
­societies in accordance with human rights (Ch. 6). Second, one not only needs what a
20  Preparing the ground
human right is to be clarified in order to know just what is being challenged; it
­evidently needs to be clear as well that there are any human rights at all and also, to a
certain extent, what particular human rights there are. To get clear about this, one also
needs to know – as will become clearer below – whether there are parties that could
be suitable duty bearers with regard to human rights. Third and last, in order to know
why human rights and the challenges to them matter that much at all, we need a good
view of the weight of human rights.
18 One may also speak of a philosophical right, as opposed to a juridical one.
19 Shue (1996), p. 13.
20 Shue’s emphasis on actual enjoyment and social protection points to his views on
duties (that these are not merely negative) and duty bearers (that, on the one hand,
states are not the only ones, but that, on the other hand, duty bearers do have to be
able to provide guarantees). I will return to the notion of a standard threat shortly.
21 For the sake of readability, I will sometimes skip the ‘very’s in the rest of the book.
But the idea remains that, with human rights, the interests and protections must be
very important.
This is an interest conception of human rights (see e.g. Marmor 2015). Such a con-
ception is widely prevalent in the literature. Compared with a will-conception of
human rights (see e.g. Wenar 2015), it has the disadvantage, among other things, that
it only partly accommodates that those having the rights should, where possible, be
able to claim them themselves as autonomous agents. Meanwhile, one of its advant-
ages is to allow more ‘substances’ as direct subject matters of human rights.
22 It seems unwise to demand that human rights apply to each and every member of the
species. If this were demanded, it may be difficult to ground rights such as the right to
political participation, and the list of human rights may become rather short. This is
one way in which this book’s conception of human rights generally takes distance
from (what Charles Beitz calls) ‘naturalistic’ conceptions of human rights. Cf. foot-
note 13 above.
23 For ‘always’, see Section 3.1 below.
24 Cf. Shue (1996), p. 16.
25 The notion of a standard threat is a vital and original, but also problematic, aspect of
Shue’s discussion (cf. Beitz and Goodin 2009, ‘Introduction’).
26 For a related example, see Sen (1999), Ch. 6. Cf. also Christiano (2011), who, among
other things, make an instrumental case for democracy and the rights associated with it.
27 This should happen in a way that is acceptable to people from a wide variety of back-
grounds and walks of life, and which is thus compatible with a liberal social order –
which aims to accommodate a plurality of conceptions of a good life – as well as with
many other social orders cf. also note 14 above.
28 It is also important to probe the presuppositions, coherence and consistency, and
implications of what one wants to say about the importance of certain interests and of
reliably protecting them. This approach has some similarities (but also differences)
with Nickel (2007), pp. 61ff. The most prominent alternative approach for establish-
ing the importance of interests is a transcendental one (e.g. Gewirth 1978, 2007),
which typically explicates what a certain indubitable starting point (e.g. that I have to
regard myself as an agent) already commits us (me) to. Such an approach – which I
will not discuss and evaluate here – can also be used to establish that there are human
rights in the first place. (It would, in doing so, typically adopt a will-conception rather
than an interest-conception of human rights.)
29 Cf. Nickel (2007), Ch. 5. One element that remains somewhat problematic is the
­relevant baseline – usually the situation that will arise if the protection in question is
not provided. It may not always be very determinate what this situation is.
30 For the spatiotemporal scope of application of such a list and for relativist doubts, see
Section 3.1 below.
 Human rights: a conception  21
31 As used here (in the articulation of the substance matters of human rights), free(dom)
means that one can do or have certain things if one wants to.
32 Nickel (2007, pp. 93–95) distinguishes ‘families’ of human rights (which he takes from
international human rights law): security rights; due process rights; liberty rights; rights
of political participation; equality rights; social rights; and group rights, which may be
the most controversial. A list will typically include both certain freedoms actually to do
or have certain things if one wants to (e.g. to express one’s opinion) and also certain
actual enjoyments (e.g. to be free from torture). For a somewhat similar distinction, see
Nussbaum (2000), Ch. 1, who speaks of ‘capabilities’ and ‘functionings’.
33 It is interesting whether the length of such a list and the ambitiousness of the protec-
tions envisaged would conform to what is current in the present international practice
of human rights (among other things, in the UDHR and other important documents).
A list of human rights typically indicates that protections of certain interests should
be provided even considering that there are also other interests that call for protection.
But for lists that are fairly generally formulated, this does not usually generate prob-
lems: if it is not exactly specified which protections should be forthcoming, there can
easily be, say, both rights to certain liberties and to political participation of various
sorts and various social rights. Cf. Section 3.1 below.
34 This means that I subscribe to what James Nickel (2007, pp. 28ff.) calls an ‘entitlement
plus’ conception –the duty to not actively set back etc. an interest is co-­constitutive of a
right; but talk, disregarding this, continues to be of a ‘duty not to violate etc. a right’,
and I will generally follow this usage – of human rights (cf. also Griffin 2008; pace
Nussbaum 2006, p. 280). However, on this conception, some party does not need not
be able to enforce that the duty bearers act as they should (see Nickel 2007; pace James
2005); if this were necessary, people in Syria may not have human rights.
35 Indeed, something like this (put even a bit more boldly than I do here, almost as a
conceptual claim) could be taken to be the main point of Shue’s 1996 [1980] book.
36 Pace Pogge (2008), who holds that only institutional agents can disrespect human
rights. (Accordingly, I will also speak of human rights violations by e.g. individuals,
although that can sound and be revisionist vis-à-vis common usage.) I lack the space
to further elaborate on this point; suffice it to say that no agent, not even govern-
ments, can provide reliable protection on their own – so this is not a necessity for
being a duty bearer.
37 Shue (1996), pp. 52ff.; a specific terminology (‘respect, protect, fulfil’) was adopted
by the United Nations on account of Henry Shue’s distinctions. See e.g. the Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (www.ohchr.org). Inter-
mediate duties could also, among other possibilities, be of a remedial kind (cf. Shue
1996, Afterword).
38 Cf. Shue (1996), Afterword; Miller (2005). A fourth consideration may be the exist-
ence of a special relationship, such as that of co-citizenship or co-involvement in a
cooperative scheme (e.g. trade). Cf. Section 4.3 below. For diverse considerations
about human rights and duty-bearers (in a global context), see Kuper (2005).
39 For some complications of the notion of causality, cf. Wenar (2007). Often, talk of
causality refers to making an active contribution to a situation that is morally prob-
lematic or problematic from the perspective of justice. See e.g. Pogge (2005), and for
the notion of an ‘active’ contribution Scheffler (2001).
40 It may not be a necessary condition, but many (not all, cf. consequentialists such as
Singer 1972) will deem the mere capacity to help out in a bad situation (that is, the
mere capacity to do this without suffering an equal bad oneself) insufficient to
generate moral duty. Cf. Philips (2007), Ch. 2.
41 Cf. Green (2005).
42 See Ch. 5 below. As Henry Shue points out, this need not always be done by the law:
‘in [some] cases, well-entrenched customs, backed by taboos, might serve better than
22  Preparing the ground
laws – certainly better than unenforced laws’ (1996, p. 16). And, as many have
pointed out to me, it need not always be done by governments; in certain contexts,
other agents will provide more reliable protections (cf. O’Neill 2004). Incidentally, it
seems unwise, given the reasons for attributing duties outlined above, to stipulate (as
e.g. Beitz [2009] seems to do) that only states (or, in any case, primarily states, for at
least the international community will also come in and it may not be entirely reduci-
ble to states) are the duty bearers of human rights – primarily each state for those on
its own territory or its own citizens. If reliable protection of very important interests
is at the heart of human rights, other parties could often have a role as well. (Shue’s
talk of ‘social protection’ rightly leaves the duty bearers open; ‘social’ only hints that
the protection needs to be reliable.)
43 In other words, I think of justice in a (particular) sufficientarian way. Liam Shields
characterizes sufficientarianism as follows: ‘[S]ufficiency principles… claim that we
have weighty reasons to secure enough and that once enough is secured the nature of
our reasons to secure further benefits shifts’ (2012, p. 101). I would say that, after
reaching the threshold of enough, not only do the reasons shift, they also become less
weighty. Sufficientarian theories of justice have faced certain important objections,
but I believe these can be answered (see Philips 2016).
The most influential sufficientarian account of minimal global justice – although it
is not usually explicitly presented as such, in spite of speaking very explicitly of
threshold levels – is Martha Nussbaum’s (2000) version of the capability approach.
Nussbaum also provides her theory, with its capabilities list, as a philosophical theory
of human rights. However, she is not very clear about what, beyond intuitions, justi-
fies her list (nor about problems of prioritization, which will be discussed in Ch. 5
below).
44 This example was made famous by Marx (1973), who uses it in a different context.
45 I have said that whether there is a particular human right will depend, among other
things, on the availability of suitable duty bearers. Does not the weight (in the sense
to do with blameworthiness) of such a right also depend on the weight of fulfilling
such duties? My answer is that the blameworthiness of not fulfilling these duties is
great, because the reasons (such as causal involvement; capacity to act at little cost)
are clear and strong – regardless, incidentally, of whether one is speaking of (co-)
citizens or strangers. And these reasons are all the clearer and stronger because of
what is at stake: reliable protection of very important interests.
46 More about this in Ch. 5 below.
47 In this sense, I believe that human rights do accommodate every member of the
species. (But they do not in another sense: not every right on a plausible list could
credibly be applicable to every member of the species.)
3 Common challenges to
human rights
The relativist and the political
pawns challenge

This chapter deals with two further challenges to human rights, beyond those
central to this book (the challenges of global inequality and of future people)
and also beyond the question of motivation. These two further challenges, which
I will call the relativist challenge and the political pawns challenge, are perhaps
the most common ‘all-out’ challenges to human rights. It can be observed that
they testify to a scepticism about human rights that is no longer moderate and no
longer only concerns certain aspects of human rights, but that is rather pervasive
and deep. The relativist challenge says that human rights have no universal
validity, but only validity relative to a certain spatial or temporal (social, cul-
tural, etc.) context;1 the political pawns challenge states that human rights are
just pawns in a political power game – nice-sounding cloaks over a reality of
power politics – which do not make any difference for the better and may even
make things worse.2 I assume that most readers of this book are not so sceptical
about human rights as to be drawn to these challenges. Still, both challenges are
too important to leave them unaddressed, and too prominent in current debates
(about, among other things, the end/future of human rights);3 and that is why I
discuss them in this chapter.4 I shall try to outline some of the most plausible
ways in which they may be construed – and answered, if (as I think) they can be.
A lot has been said about these challenges, and my ambition is not, as in
­Chapters 4–6 below, to add to the relevant philosophical literature, but only that
what I say is adequate in light of this literature.5
Importantly, if the aforementioned challenges get it right, this may well
show that human rights are not fit for being the minimum standards of global
justice or, in other words, for providing the most important requirements with
regard to living together globally, which is the most important role that I have
envisaged for them. This is not only true for the relativist challenge, in
important versions of it, but also for the political pawns challenge. Further-
more, if the challenges are right, human rights may well not be fit for other
important roles either, such as guiding cross-national activism and inter-
national policy, nor for – in cases of gross violation – possibly justifying force-
ful intervention.6 Thus, there is really something at stake when one asks
whether the challenges get it right. This chapter will argue that, in the respects
that matter the most, they often do not.7
24  Preparing the ground
3.1 The relativist challenge
I propose to understand relativism about human rights as the claim that human
rights do not have universal validity, but some more restricted scope of validity –
relative to a culture, an historical era, a person, etc. or, more generally, a restricted
spatial or temporal scope of validity.8 Relativism, so understood, is not the posi-
tion on which the American Anthropological Association relied in objecting to the
Universal Declaration by, among other things, asserting that ‘standards and values
are relative to the culture from which they derive’.9 By contrast, the relativist posi-
tion that the present chapter deals with has no problems with universally valid
standards, etc. as such; it simply holds that human rights claims have no universal
validity.10 In fact, I think that in some ways there is something to this relativist
position, as shall be explained. But it depends on the exact human rights claims
that one is talking about – on their content and, relatedly, their level of generality. I
begin by discussing some places where I believe relativism to be wrong, and then
increasingly move to points where I believe it is right. Finally, the implications
will be considered for the roles that human rights can take on. In this regard, one
can say that the relativist challenge mostly gets things wrong.
One of the key features of human rights in this book’s conception – and
plausibly also in the post-World War II practice11 – is that they are about reliably
protecting very important interests. And a second commitment involved at a
fundamental level, all people matter equally, in the following sense: the
important interests of all people – from everywhere and from always12 – matter a
lot, and are candidates for protection. (However, as will be argued in Chapter 4,
human rights do not by definition imply that the protection should in the end be
equal. But often it should be.) What is the reason for accepting these two points
– that reliable protection of very important interests matters a lot, and that this is
so with every person’s important interests? I repeat here, at greater length and
explicitly with an eye to providing an answer to the relativist, some points that
were already made in Chapter 2. I would say that the best case for them can be
made by looking at what it implies for people if their important interests are,
negatively, disregarded or, positively, attended to.13 The best way to do this is
perhaps to tell stories. I am thinking of accounts that show, by narrating, what
happens to people: What does it look like if people (negatively) lack safety or go
hungry or, conversely (and positively), when they are safe and well-fed? Such
stories can show why it matters a lot that people’s, and all people’s, very
important interests are looked after and what goes wrong when they are not.14
And they can also show why it is important reliably to protect such interests, so
that people can count on these interests being attended to: it adds something real,
over and above having enough to eat now, that you can reasonably count on also
having enough to eat tomorrow – and the day after tomorrow, etc. Furthermore,
the stories will also make it clear what interests matter particularly and in what
ways – from having enough to eat to having some control over your environ-
ment,15 to being able to make certain decisions of your own, to having a measure
of respect from others.16
 Common challenges to human rights  25
Let me offer one example of a story – Primo Levi’s harrowing account of
Auschwitz in If This Is a Man – which shows this importance in a negative way,
by showing what happens to people if a number of their very important interests
(among others, those to be treated respectfully, to be able to count on having
enough to eat, to be able to take care of one’s body) are flagrantly disregarded:

… my sleepiness is masked by a state of tension and anxiety of which I have

not yet managed to rid myself, and so I talk and talk … I have too many
things to ask. I am hungry and when will they distribute the soup tomorrow?
And will I be able to eat it without a spoon? And where will I be able to find
one? … [I] soon slip into a bitter and tense sleep. But it is not rest: I feel
myself threatened, besieged, at every moment I am ready to draw myself into
a spasm of defense. I dream and I seem to sleep on a road, on a bridge, across
a door through which many people are passing. And now, oh, so early, the
reveille sounds. The entire hut shakes to its foundations, the lights are put on,
everyone near me bustles around in a sudden frantic activity. They shake the
blankets raising clouds of fetid dust, they dress with feverish hurry, they run
outside into the freezing air half-dressed, they rush headlong towards the
latrines and washrooms. Some, bestially, urinate while they run to save time,
because within five minutes begins the distribution of bread, of bread-Brot-
Broid-chleb-pain-lechem-keynér, of the holy grey slab which seems gigantic
in your neighbour’s hand, and in your own hand so small as to make you cry.
It is a daily hallucination to which in the end one becomes accustomed: but at
the beginning it is so irresistible that many of us, after long discussions on our
own open and constant misfortune and the shameless luck of others, finally
exchange our ration, at which the illusion is renewed inverted, leaving
everyone discontented and frustrated.…
Bread is also our only money: in the few minutes which elapse between
its distribution and consumption, the Block resounds with claims, quarrels
and scuffles. It is the creditors of yesterday who are claiming payment in the
brief moment in which the debtor is solvent. After which a relative quiet
begins and many take advantage to go to the latrines again to smoke half a
cigarette, or to the washrooms to wash themselves properly.
The washroom is far from attractive. It is badly lighted, full of draughts,
with the brick floor covered by a layer of mud. The water is not drinkable; it
has a revolting smell and often fails for many hours.…17

If someone is not convinced by such stories, the most important reply that
remains may be to tell them in a better way.18 Admittedly, for some interests, it
will be very easy to tell a convincing story (as with the interest in having enough
food of good enough quality) and for others it will be quite hard (as with having
‘periodic holidays with pay’,19 to take a common example). But what matters is
that there will be a number of very important interests of which it is very plaus-
ible that their being reliably protected matters a lot, and matters a lot no matter
whose interests they are.20 This is arguably so for all of the ‘six families’ of
26  Preparing the ground
human rights (which concern having security; receiving a fair trial; having
certain liberties; being able to participate politically; being equal before the law;
and having one’s basic material needs fulfilled).21 Moreover, the importance of
reliable protections of these interests does not depend on highly theoretical or
technical assumptions and may thus possibly be shared by people from widely
different backgrounds.
However, the case for universal protections is not yet complete, even if one
could convincingly show that certain interests matter a lot, and for broad
­categories of people everywhere and always. That is, the case is not yet complete
if one wants to show that it is not only universally valuable for there to be reliable
protections, but that there should also universally be such protections – which is
what a human right asserts. To show the latter, one also needs to consider whether
there are appropriate duty bearers – parties who should provide the protections
in question.
What can one say about duty bearers? Here too I repeat (this time briefly) some
things that were said in Chapter 2 above, now with a view to providing an answer
to the relativist. To begin with, it should be relatively uncontroversial that agents
must never (save perhaps in very – very! – exceptional circumstances) actively
jeopardize the fulfilment of people’s important interests, for instance by starving
people or putting them in a position where they are much more vulnerable to being
starved.22 There would be drastic implications if such a prohibition were not
accepted.23 What should one say when it comes to furthering the reliable protec-
tion of interests, and making sure, among other things, that people are protected
from active disregard by third parties? Here it seems plausible that parties have
duties at least when they can effectively do things at no great costs to themselves,
and when no great unfairness is involved (it would be involved if, for example, it
is obviously much more appropriate to assign the duty to some other party).
Besides, if an agent has played a greater role in bringing about a problem with the
protection of an interest (if they ‘broke it’), they will plausibly also have to play a
greater role in fixing it. It is important that these thoughts about appropriate duty
bearers are not highly theoretical and that they are acceptable to people from very
different walks of life. Frequently, they may be accepted already in virtue of
reflecting on the implications if one were not to accept them.
The conditions discussed are relatively general, though, and one must take care
not to jump to conclusions as to just what protections they can show to be valid
across space and time. ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for
the health and the well-being of himself [sic] and his [sic] family [sic]’ (UDHR,
Art. 25(1)) may, if ‘himself/his’ and ‘family’ are read broadly, be valid across place
and time – although this will depend, among other things, on what ‘adequate’
means. After all, in all places and times, reliably protecting such a standard of
living is important, and – by the criteria just mentioned – there may always be at
least certain protections for which there are suitable duty bearers.24 However,
Article 25 then goes on to mention some things where there may, in some times,
be too few suitable duty bearers for providing meaningful protections (except for
the more negative duties of not actively disregarding, and often also the intermediate
 Common challenges to human rights  27
ones of protecting from active disregard) such as, depending on what we mean by
it, ‘medical care and necessary social services’;25 although one should not adopt a
resigned attitude all too quickly here. If there were no appropriate duty bearers, the
spatiotemporal scope of validity of this right would be more restricted, and
one would have to resort to a more general – or just different – formulation to pre-
serve universal validity. But often there will be appropriate duty bearers across time
and place, and then there will be a case for the universal validity of a human right,
if it can also be shown that reliable protection of the interests in question is
important for wide categories of people across time and place.
Yet there may be the following complication: although certain interests are
very important and there are suitable duty bearers available for protecting
them, there is a price to protecting them. For instance, a society where certain
freedoms to lead one’s life by one’s own lights are guaranteed will likely be a
society where some people will lose out and become depressed or addicted to
alcohol. This raises the question of whether certain protections of, say,
freedom of thought and of choice of occupation, will really have to be pro-
vided at all places and times – all-things-considered. Or could it be that the
protections of other interests will at certain times and places have to take
priority?26
In reply to this question, it should first be observed that a large part of the
interests that human rights are concerned with take the form of what Amartya
Sen and Martha Nussbaum27 have called real freedoms: people should be able to
eat well enough if they want to, to develop their creative capacities if they want
to, etc. The freedom should, on the one hand, not be merely formal – people
should really be in a position to eat well enough if they want to – but it should,
on the other hand, also be a freedom: people should not be forced to eat well.28
Now the claim involved in human rights is that the stories show that it is
important for broad categories of people everywhere, and also always (more
about this in a moment), to have certain real freedoms – even if that results in
certain kinds of social losses. So, the claim is indeed that human rights outweigh
other considerations – and this is, of course, a very distinctive and non-trivial
claim when made, for example, about freedom of expression, freedom of political
participation and the freedom to choose one’s occupation.
In short, then, the claim is that the stories, plus certain relatively uncontrover-
sial ideas about duty bearers, show that an adequate list of human rights – which
will typically, think for instance of the UDHR, be fairly abstract – can claim all-
things-considered validity for all the specific rights on it. All the interests with
which the list is concerned will have to receive meaningful social protections,
everywhere and always.
Second, however, the more precise protections that will have to be forth-
coming can vary to a certain extent between times and places. In other words, at
a more specific level (where the setting of priorities among human rights will
typically have to take place29), universal validity of human rights may be said to
be less plausible – although, often, equality of protection (especially across
place) will be a requirement here too (see Chapter 4 below).
28  Preparing the ground
Finally, and importantly, the general/abstract level is usually the one that
critics of the universal validity of human rights have in mind. Moreover, uni-
versality at this level – where I have argued it is most plausible – is what
matters most for the ability of human rights to offer a framework for living
together on a global scale. After all, a global charter cannot help but be relat-
ively general.
So much, then, for an answer to the relativist. I will now consider a complica-
tion of that answer with regard to the (distant) past.

Universal validity of human rights across time

Now, someone might ask whether it is at all plausible that human rights have
universal validity across time if this extends very far into the past, say back to
the ancient Egyptians. (Or perhaps also: What does it even mean to say that
human rights are also valid for the ancient Egyptians?) And wouldn’t it be a
serious problem if human rights were not so valid across time (or if we could not
judge whether they are)? My answer is, again, twofold: first, there may indeed
be difficulty, although one should not exaggerate, in extending the validity of
human rights across time – or at least there may be doubt whether it is justified
to so extend them. Second, however, these problems are not often in play in the
cases we need to judge. Let me elaborate.
There seems to be no great problem in saying that for the ancient Egyptians,
too, it was a very important interest reliably to have access to adequate food and
that there were suitable duty bearers around for providing protections of that
interest. We may feel less sure, although not so much so, when we are thinking
about their ability to speak their mind. And when we are talking about a free press
or their ability to vote, the most one can say is that it might have been important
for them to have had institutions where such freedoms could be made sense of.
But since their way of life and world is so far removed from us, it may be difficult
to judge whether this statement is justified, and also what the statement could even
mean – although, once more, we should not exaggerate the difficulty.
It is important, though, that, as Bernard Williams remarks, we – people now
alive – need not make the choice as to what to do in this case.30 (A contemporary
case we need not judge is that of an undiscovered Amazon tribe.) More
important, then, is the question as to whether (certain) human rights are univer-
sally valid in cases that we can affect through action. This can involve punishing
someone for alleged human rights abuses that happened 40 years ago (or, think-
ing of place, for making out whether human rights standards are appropriate
yardsticks for judging certain practices now occurring in some faraway country).
Here the situation is typically much closer to us in time or place and there are
consequently many more ways to investigate whether the interests in question
are important for the people concerned, and whether there are appropriate duty
bearers available. It should be noted that people sometimes, also in some of the
more nearby times (and places), seem to be excused because they could not
reasonably have known. Yet, however this may be, one might say that human
 Common challenges to human rights  29
rights are still valid in such cases (and sometimes there will be duties on certain
parties to make sure that other parties know).
Finally, things could be different for people who may live in the future:
getting clear about what their important interests will be can be difficult. But it is
certainly, and inevitably, within our power to take action that affects the future.
So, we will have to act on the most defensible assumptions that we can make,
and we will often have to focus on providing all-purpose means, which will
serve future people in a very broad array of possible interests that they may
have. To have adequate all-purpose means may itself be called an interest that
future people will have. We may, in other words, have to focus on those inter-
ests that people will certainly (or plausibly31) have, regardless of what other ones
they may also have; and also on interests whose fulfilment will be a precondition
for meeting a wide variety of other interests.
Still, thinking about the future could give rise to a form of scepticism about
the universal validity of human rights that arises less clearly when thinking
about the past: human beings, or the conditions in which they live, might change
in such ways that even those interests are called into question about which
we (now alive) feel certain that they will be important for people living in the
future; think about having enough to eat or receiving a fair trial. And the same is
true for the availability of suitable duty bearers about which we may now feel
certain. Perhaps the biological make-up of people far away in the future, and
their institutions for living together, will change in such ways that one can doubt
the importance of certain interests or the availability of appropriate duty bearers.
Yet I do not think that such a remote possibility – which, importantly, is even
less likely to be applicable to people in the not so far-off future than to people in
a very far-off future – should give one doubt about the universal validity of
human rights. We know that the biological constitution of human beings, and the
social and natural conditions of their life on earth, are always open to change –
just as, in certain respects similarly, our knowledge about what interests are
important for human beings and about who could be suitable duty bearers is
always open and provisional. This should not hold us back from going with
those interests that we now, with good reason, judge to be widely important for
people across time and space. Nor should it hold us back from going with the
judgements that we now have good reasons to accept about appropriate duty
bearers. In these cases, our present estimates surely suffice for regarding human
rights as universally valid, also where the future is concerned. Human rights will
thus, in so far as this depends on universal validity, be a suitable articulation of
the minimum requirements of global justice, and one that is fit for the future.

Concluding considerations
So far, I have considered the universal validity (or lack thereof) of human rights
if they are articulated relatively abstractly or, in other words, at a relatively high
level of generality, such as that of the UDHR. (At this level of abstraction,
among other things the articulation of the required protections, and sometimes
30  Preparing the ground
also of the interests to be protected, has a certain vagueness.) I have argued that,
considering the interests in question and the availability of suitable duty bearers,
many human rights plausibly have universal validity – some meaningful protec-
tions of the interests at the centre of these rights plausibly ought to be provided at
all times and places. True, when talking about their universal validity across time,
one may have doubts about some human rights, but mostly this will concern cases
where taking action is not in question (the far-off past). Talking about human
rights in the future raises the difficult question of what assumptions to make about
future people – for example about what very important interests they will have.
Here it will frequently be best to go with very important interests that people will
plausibly always have, no matter what other interests they may also have, as well
as with interests that they will plausibly in any case need to have met as a precon-
dition for meeting a wide variety of potential very important interests.
How are things when one is talking about a more concrete level, where it is
discussed specifically which protections are in the end to be provided as a matter
of human rights? Some of the most important factors here are the wealth of a
society and its technological capacities. These will, at a given point in time, not
easily justify inequalities in protections across and within countries, although
they sometimes will.32 But they will often justify inequalities of protection
across time: in a time with much greater wealth and technological capacities,
more protections of important interests will, concretely speaking, be required as a
matter of human rights.33 More generally, there will be more variety and less
universal validity across place and especially time if one considers human rights
protections at a relatively concrete level. This, however, is not typically the level
that those engaged in debates about the universal validity of human rights are
first of all interested in. These debates are usually above all concerned with the
more abstract level (the level, broadly, of the UDHR): not with the exact protec-
tions, but with the list of interests for which some meaningful protections –
which will typically be only moderately specific – should be forthcoming. And
there, I have argued, universal validity is often much less problematic.

3.2 The political pawns challenge

I will now address the second challenge: the political pawns challenge, which
holds that human rights are being used as tools in political power games. Or, more
precisely, human rights are supposedly a nice-sounding cloak over political real-
ities where, really, the self-interest of states carries the day. As such, human rights
may at best be useless; but the charge is that they often are something worse. Not
only do they keep many people (at ministries, NGOs, etc.) occupied in useless
heaps of paper and verbal exercises – people who could otherwise perhaps some-
where make a real difference for the better. But they also serve to cover up deeds
and practices that are really driven by other, sometimes unsavoury, considerations.
States (as well as business companies, etc.) act, so the thought goes, on the basis of
political and economic interests and the like – and this will often, but not always,
be alright – yet they sell it as serving human rights.34
 Common challenges to human rights  31
This charge is naturally directed against human rights as we find them in
post-World War II practice of human rights – and whether it gets things right is
in large part an empirical question, something to which I will return shortly.
However, the charge may end up discrediting any endeavour to take the post-
World War II practice into the future (to understand an important part of it in a
possibly revisionary way, etc.), as this book has been trying to do. Relatedly, the
charge is most naturally read as one that applies in non-ideal situations in our current
real world; but those who make it typically go further and say that therefore –
because human rights function as pawns in political power games in our present
world – they are broke: if we think about transforming our current world into a
(more and ultimately fully) just world, human rights cannot be part of that just
world; they will always be abused. More precisely, something that is in
important ways related to the current practice – e.g. something concerned with
reliably protecting very important interests, something trying to provide a
minimum ideal of global justice – will be beyond repair and we will have to start
anew in order to be able to arrive at a just place. In short: the challenge is typic-
ally about our present, unjust world and I follow it in that, for this chapter is
about addressing the challenge as it is commonly made; but it has implications
that go beyond these non-ideal contexts.
With this in the background, let us now for a moment assume that the polit-
ical pawns charge does get things right. One reply to it could then be that it does
not concern human rights themselves. The charge is rather, it might be said,
about the abuse of human rights, and that is no reason to get rid of human rights
in international and national practice. Yet this is not very convincing. Suppose
that human rights are used to cover up dubious power politics and the like (some
politics of, for example, taking influence in other societies, also forcefully) and
that in many contexts there is no way to repair this. Would this really be no
reason to try to get rid of human rights in the contexts concerned, if possible?
What would it mean to say that in such contexts the problem is not with human
rights themselves, but with how they are used?
It seems more plausible to say that human rights do have a serious problem if
the charge is right. (Consider: if they irredeemably functioned as cover-ups in
certain contexts, could they be plausible as specifying principles for living
together in these contexts?) However, whether one should get rid of them
remains dependent on the alternatives one has. These may be quite sobering.
More particularly, if human rights are irredeemably used to cover up dubious
affairs (and possibly serving as justifications for them), it may well seem better
to have nothing – that too is an alternative – in the way of requirements for
living together on a global scale, rather than having a practice of human rights.
Is this, however, a plausible picture of what has really happened or is really
happening? As said, the answer to this has many empirical aspects. In theory,
one may equally well think that high-sounding human rights talk serves to cover
up unsavoury realities as, say, that it leads to a civilizing form of hypocrisy35 –
that such talk could lead people to engage in corresponding action, for example
in order to avoid cognitive dissonance.36 Now, the empirical record is, as far as I
32  Preparing the ground
can see, unclear. Not seldom does there seem to be a kind of stand-off between
observers. On the one hand, there are those who point to instances where the
paperwork and the treaties seem to have made no difference, but have only
created a shadow reality or worse.37 On the other hand, others hold out hope and
point to instances where appealing to human rights does seem to have con-
tributed to making a difference for the better – in furthering minimal respect,
peace, a culture of civility, equality, etc.38 Both sides can, it seems, rely on
robust evidence.
To take the sides in reverse order now, on the upside, there are not only human
rights activists – NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch
are cases in point – which have in certain cases achieved freedom for prisoners of
conscience and which are effective advocates for groups that are marginalized
because of their political convictions, ethnicity or sexual orientation. But there are
also, for example, relatively well-functioning regional human rights systems, such
as the European one, which have often led to effective legal protections of the
human rights of vulnerable and other groups. In addition, one may make a case
that, even with such a horrendous event as the Rwandan genocide of 1994, an
appeal to human rights – although, crucially and disastrously, it was not enough to
bring about timely action – helped to an extent to articulate the outrage and facilit-
ated subsequent institutional changes, such as an early-warning system for geno-
cides and the UN adoption of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’.39
On the downside, the international prominence of human rights was, as said,
not enough to stop the Rwandan genocide, and human rights did provide a nice-
sounding rationalization for interventions (perhaps most notoriously the one in
Iraq in 2003) that really weren’t justifiable by a concern for human rights,40 let
alone motivated thereby. In fact, for all their prominence in international talk,
human rights continue to be a relatively low foreign policy priority with, for
example, Western countries.41 And the UK, for example, even continues to have
a role in the trade of torture instruments.42 Thus, the picture seems mixed.
Appealing to human rights has done some good, but on other occasions remains
rather toothless or even a cover-up for dubious activities and policies.
Let us return, at this point, to the question of what alternatives to human
rights there might be. One alternative, as indicated, is to have nothing in the way
of a narrative/ideal or something similar to guide living together on a global
scale. What would happen then? Presumably, power politics would often carry
the day, although this need not always be so. Where it did, people would be
likely to articulate their misgivings. Further, they may well try to formulate
alternatives, bringing some coherence into their thoughts. And they may try to
give these alternatives some teeth. They may, for instance, seek to get them reli-
ably implemented in policy. If something like this should happen, the result
would likely be very close to a set of requirements / a (minimum) ideal for
living together on a global scale, with a related practice, where prominent articu-
lations of these requirements were discussed and put to various uses.
Perhaps these requirements and the related practice would turn out to be
another alternative to human rights: they could differ both from some acceptable
 Common challenges to human rights  33
interpretation of the post-World War II practice of human rights and from this
book’s conception (which of course holds on to some relation with the post-
World War II practice, as explained). However, there would, on reflection, at
the very least be a number of important resemblances: it seems likely, if the
stories (referred to above) about the importance of certain interests are con-
vincing, that reliable protection of important interests, and of all persons’
important interests, will be quite central to these new requirements – just as
they are central to both the post-World War II practice and to the present
book’s conception of human rights.
Now, if it is right that the new requirements would in important ways
resemble those that we now have (in the post-World War II practice, etc.), then
why abandon those in the first place? One answer could be that the surmise that
I just made is incorrect: the new requirements will in very important ways be
different from the old ones after all. For instance, the list of rights could differ in
a number of ways. It might put more emphasis on environmental concerns, say,
or on group rights, or less emphasis on states as duty bearers. However, the
differences that I would think of, such as those just mentioned, do not seem to be
so fundamental that they amount to a complete overhaul. They are closer to
making repairs, more or less locally (that is, as opposed to all over), in the
present practice of human rights. And it should not be controversial that repairs
are needed.43
Another answer may be that it does sometimes help to start all over again – or
even that it may be a good idea to do so periodically – even if what you are going
to build is something that, in important ways, much resembles what you had (the
post-World War II practice of human rights). Then the hope is, of course, that it
will resemble it in the good ways, such as sometimes succeeding in reliably pro-
tecting very important interests, and that it will not resemble it in the bad ways,
such as serving as a cover-up for dubious practices. I think that the answer to this
must be that, yes, sometimes it is a good idea to start all over again. But only if
you have to, and if you can hope to do a better job. You would not tear your house
down to build a rather similar one if you could make local repairs. And, even if
you could not make local repairs, you would only build a new house if you could
hope to avoid the shakiness and leakages, etc. of the old one.44
However, what about the following case? You do not have to tear the old
house down because it has so many shortcomings, but you do have good reason
to think you will do a much better job by building a new house. Then there may,
I believe, indeed be a good case for building a new house. Importantly, though,
this is still a case where (1) there are serious shortcomings in the current practice
of human rights and where (2) you can reasonably expect to do much better if
you start anew.
Now, while the first condition might arguably be fulfilled, I believe this is
often debatable for the second: it is unlikely that many major shortcomings of
the present international practice of human rights are avoided if one were to start
anew (whatever exactly ‘starting anew’ may mean, for that matter: it is not so
easy to fill that out concretely).
34  Preparing the ground
True, careful institutional design, with appropriate checks and balances, etc.,
may avoid some problems that the current practice has, such as human rights
being inappropriately appealed to in certain policy contexts, or human rights
involving foreign policies being carried out without due regard for local circum-
stances or for what marginalized groups want.45 But there are also shortcomings
that are so deeply ingrained in the biological, social, etc. features of human
beings that they will not be greatly avoidable. Geopolitical considerations –
which, to be sure, have their legitimate place in policy – are likely to retain a
great influence on the policy priority that human rights get; and human rights
will continue sometimes to function as disingenuous excuses for power politics.
After this consideration of the limits of the improvements to be expected
from starting anew, let’s also recall that the present practice of human rights pre-
sents a mixed picture, with both favourable and unfavourable aspects. If so, I
find it unclear that whatever improvements one can reasonably expect from
starting anew could not in many cases also be achieved by making local
repairs.46 Examples of what could be achieved – and sometimes already has
been achieved – by local repairs are institutional improvements such as, for
example, the Responsibility to Protect; the promotion of a name-and-shame
culture; and introducing structured practices, on the part of governments that
subscribe to human rights, of carefully examining local circumstances and
somehow involving local people when carrying out foreign policy.
In short, then, the political pawns challenge could be answered as follows:
the present practice of human rights seems a mixed bag, rather than one beyond
repair and hopelessly pervaded by power and interest politics. And it seems
plausible that ‘starting anew’ will not avoid all problems and that, arguably,
necessary improvements frequently do not require starting anew. To this one
may add that starting anew (whatever exactly that means) is politically probably
a very bad idea in our current world; it is very dubious that a new ‘house’ for
living together on a global scale could be constructed in the foreseeable future,
let alone one that does significantly better than human rights.

3.3 To conclude
This chapter has considered two very common challenges to human rights, the
relativist challenge and the political pawns challenge. These challenges, in the
versions that one often finds and that I have discussed, are more all-out critical
of human rights than the three challenges that form the centre of this book (see
Chapters 4–6). Still, they are so frequent that they need to be considered. The
relativist challenge, as I have understood it, denies that human rights can claim
universal validity. As a consequence, they are not deemed fit for playing such
roles as providing the most important requirements for living together globally
(as well as, among other things, guiding transnational activism and, sometimes,
in cases of grave disrespect, potentially justifying forceful intervention). In
reply, I have argued that one should distinguish between different human rights
claims with, among other things, different contents and levels of generality. The
 Common challenges to human rights  35
scope of validity of such claims can vary. At the same time, one can draw on the
importance of certain interests, and that they are important for everyone, and
also on broadly acceptable thoughts about when agents have to bear duties. On
this basis, many human rights claims – typically relatively general, but not
empty ones, think of civil, political and socio-economic rights such as those
mentioned in the UDHR – will plausibly have wide validity across place, and
relatively wide validity across time. This will be enough to make human rights
suitable for providing the main requirements for living together on a global scale
and for playing a number of other important roles.
I want to emphasize that one must remain cautious with regard to what this
means in practice. Suppose that certain agents plausibly bear duties to protect
some people’s access to food (say, that of English citizens) against certain threats.
May they then impose these protections on the people in question? Sometimes this
will be so, but they have to take great care that they know the context in which
they operate very well. And it is also an important interest for these people to
decide themselves about things that greatly matter for their lives. This interest
might sometimes justifiably be overruled, but surely not very easily.
The concerns just raised already point in the direction of the second challenge
discussed in this chapter: that human rights may be complicit in political power
plays, etc. This challenge mainly concerns our present (highly non-ideal) world,
but it may have wider implications – human rights may in general seem so much
beyond repair that they cannot even be shaped into something just. The way in
which human rights may be complicit in political power games would, accord-
ing to the challenge, for example be that they cover up these games in nice talk,
or that they keep critics of such games silenced in useless paperwork. Such
things do happen, but equally there is evidence that human rights play positive
roles in guiding activism, governmental policy, etc. I have argued that we should
only let go of human rights if there are serious shortcomings in them that we can
avoid by having an alternative. It is dubious that this is indeed the case. Espe-
cially, it is not evident that we can do much better by turning to an alternative
for human rights. However, continuous vigilance remains needed, as well as
continuous ‘local repairs’ and improvements – which should also, emphatically,
include learning from relatively disenfranchized groups. We should aim to get
an ever better view of where human rights coincide with power interests, and
keep improving the institutional framework of checks and balances for prevent-
ing undesirable instrumentalization of human rights.
In short, then, it can be admitted that it is too simple unqualifiedly to say that
human rights are valid across time and space, and similarly to hold that the occa-
sional or even widespread abuses of human rights are the abusers’ problem,
rather than a problem for human rights as a practice. On the contrary, one will
have to take on board quite a few concerns expressed by the relativist and polit-
ical pawns challenges. Yet in the end, it will often be possible to answer these
challenges, or so I have argued.
Against this background, we now turn to other challenges and questions that
remain for human rights, starting with the challenge of global inequality.
36  Preparing the ground
Notes
1 Some important and current references about relativism and human rights are: Donnelly
(2013); Nickel (2014, 2007, Ch. 11); Williams (2003); and Ibhawoh (2001) and Sen
(1999), also on Asian values, with which this chapter will not explicitly engage. See
also e.g. Bauer and Bell (1999). Furthermore, all the literature that tries to argue for
the existence of human rights (e.g. Gewirth 1978, Beitz 2009: see Ch. 2) deals, at
least implicitly, with questions of relativism and human rights.
2 For some contributions that emphasize and detail – sometimes under the heading of
debating the future or even end of human rights – the political abuse of human rights,
see Bob (2019); Douzinas (2007); Hopgood (2013); Kennedy (2004); Posner (2014).
(To be sure, these authors do not always go so far as to say that human rights make
no difference for the better or actually make things worse.) This literature is usually
not philosophical – not explicitly at least – but it is highly relevant to the political
pawns challenge, which I take to have clear philosophical aspects, speaking as this
challenge does of ‘making a difference for the better’ or ‘making things worse’
(better/worse in terms of, among other things, the protection of important interests).
3 See note 1 and 2 above.
4 Thus, the reason for discussing them in the same chapter is not that they would have
something substantive in common.
5 Or, to be more precise, that it is adequate in light of the philosophical – or philosophi-
cally highly relevant – literature on the subjects. As far as I can see, the answers that I
propose in this chapter have, in large part, not been proposed in this literature, nor
have they been invalidated by observations made in this literature.
6 Cf. Ch. 2, note 11 and 14.
7 If readers are convinced by my answers to the relativist and the political pawns chal-
lenges, the issues with which Chs. 4–6 deal still remain important and unanswered.
Alternatively, if my answers to the relativist and/or political pawns challenge should
be unconvincing, the issues addressed in Chs. 4–6 can be taken to examine whether
there are important additional grounds for scepticism about human rights.
8 Cf. Nickel (2007), p. 168.
9 Quoted after Nickel (2007), p. 169. Relativism, in the present chapter’s sense, is not
either what Bernard Williams calls ‘standard relativism’, where each party (e.g.
culture, JP) is right ‘for itself ’ (Williams 2003, p. 68). For, as Williams convincingly
points out, this position is much too simple when it comes to delineating the scope of
validity of outlooks, etc. Williams says:
For standard relativism, one may say, it is always too early or too late. It is too early
when the parties have no contact with each other, and neither can think of itself as
‘we’ and the other as ‘they’. It is too late, when they have encountered one another:
the moment that they have done so, there is a new ‘we’ to be negotiated.
(2003, p. 69)
10 One motivation for this position may be, as James Nickel observes (2007, Ch. 11), a
noble concern for the plurality of human ways of life. But, as he also observes (ibid.),
it is doubtful whether relativism, as understood here, is the best way to do justice to
this concern.
11 However, as pointed out in Section 2.1 above, I am not concerned with interpreting
that practice, only with providing a (potentially revisionist) conception of an
important part of that practice – its wish to offer a minimum ideal of global justice.
12 Cf. Section 2.2 above, and below in this section.
13 In what follows, I will not address possible instrumental ways to make the case for
the importance of certain interests. See Section 2.2 above.
14 If someone is, in the end, not convinced by such stories, it may be hard to think of what
to say to her (as to Napoleon when, according to one anecdote, a soldier protested
 Common challenges to human rights  37
that he would die if Napoleon were to send him out of the army and into the Russian
winter; whereupon Napoleon allegedly replied: ‘What’s that to me?’ I am unable to
find the reference of this story). At the same time, an emphasis on stories should be
supplemented with a method – some would call it ‘reflective equilibrium’ (Rawls
1999a), but it can be given a less controversial name – which, in addition to critically
investigating the narrative at hand, probes the implications, presuppositions and
coherence of saying that certain interests are particularly important for broad categories
of people everywhere and always. (For a discussion of ‘broad categories of people
everywhere and always’, see Section 2.2 above.) The key ‘extra’, compared with this
method, that the emphasis on narratives offers is that it moves beyond a simple refer-
ence to intuitions: it tries to show (both negatively and positively) why certain interests
should be regarded as particularly important. Probing the implications, presuppositions
and coherence of so regarding them can then follow afterwards.
15 Cf. Nussbaum (2000), pp. 78–80.
16 What about someone saying that people (and sometimes collectives of people) in
certain cultures, etc. (say, the Dutch) should decide for themselves which protections
are important for them? One should reply, I think, that yes it is an important interest
for people to be able to decide for themselves; and yes, also politically, it is often appro-
priate that outsiders show a fair deal of restraint in meddling (in ways that are possibly
paternalistic) with people deciding for themselves (where surely the appropriate delin-
eation of who are the people will often remain an issue). Despite all this, the decisions
that people themselves make are not always a good guide to the interests that are genu-
inely important for them (as testified by e.g. the well-known problems of adaptive
­preferences) – although they are perhaps often more so than the views of outsiders.
17 Levi (1987 [1958]), pp. 44–45. I am aware that one should be somewhat cautious
with regard to the conclusions that can be drawn from this very extreme account.
Some further examples of relevant stories can be found in e.g. Scheper-Hughes
(1992), Ferréz (2000), Hermens (1999). Generally, one may draw on anthropological
studies or also fictional accounts that offer convincing interpretations of what goes on in
real-life situations (what convinces would of course be a matter for further investiga-
tion). Note that these stories have a certain ‘objective’ thrust in that what they show can
diverge from how people themselves perceive their situation. It is always important to
take people’s own perspective very seriously; but this doesn’t settle the question of
whether an interest is universally important. At the same time, if an interest is univer-
sally important, that doesn’t tell one immediately what policies etc. are justified.
18 And cf. note 14. For transcendental accounts, cf. Section 2.2 above.
19 UDHR, Art. 24.
20 In other words, the stories can show why it matters that a person is adequately fed
regardless of the age, sex, position in society etc. of that person.
21 For these families, see Nickel (2007), p. 181. He adds group rights, which may be
more controversial.
22 Things are already more difficult when it comes to actively reducing reliable protec-
tions (see Ch. 5 below), although this cannot in all cases be sharply distinguished
from examples such as those mentioned in the text.
23 Referring to drastic implications may be in line with a reflective equilibrium approach
to moral justification. But it may also be cast less controversially as approximating a
reductio ad absurdum.
24 I take a right to an adequate standard of living, just as a right to health, to mean that
certain protections of it must be provided – not that the achievement of an adequate
standard of living, or of health, must be 100 per cent guaranteed. See Chs. 2 and 5.
25 I am thinking of sensible curative care, and of social services whose content would
depend on medical and scientific know-how that did not exist in certain societies.
26 Compatibly with such priority, there may also be a pro tanto case for providing, at all
times and places, the protections concerned of freedom of thought and choice of
38  Preparing the ground
occupation; but such a pro tanto case is weaker than what is often meant when such a
right is claimed to have universal validity.
27 E.g. Sen (1999); Nussbaum (2000).
28 In line with Sen and Nussbaum, there are certain exceptions. For example, the
freedom to have an environment free of infectious diseases can only be brought about
by in fact realizing such an environment, which means that it will be kind of forced
upon many people.
29 See Ch. 5 below.
30 Williams (2003), p. 67.
31 See Section 5.3 below.
32 This will be argued in Ch. 4 below.
33 Conversely, in a time with less wealth and fewer technological capacities, fewer pro-
tections will be required. Cf. Mulgan (2011). These judgements depend on the idea
that human rights should consume a substantial part of a society’s wealth and techno-
logical resources, but by no means all. See Ch. 5.
34 Cf. Hopgood (2013), Stephen Humphreys, personal communication (2012; Humphreys
doesn’t say he subscribes to this analysis). For further recent contributions broadly in
this spirit, see note 2 above and note 37 below.
35 Jon Elster (1998, p. 111), in the context of democratic theory, uses the expression of
the ‘civilizing force of hypocrisy’.
36 In a similar vein, it may be doubted whether (for instance) the naked power politics of
a George W. Bush, who often felt no need even verbally to pay homage to human
rights ideals, was really an improvement.
37 Some authors broadly in this spirit (although also making other and more specific
claims) are Bob (2019); Douzinas (2007); Hopgood (2013); Kennedy (2004);
Koskenniemi (2011); Posner (2014); and, to a certain, limited extent Gearty (2006);
Moyn (2012); Malcontent (2015); and Humphreys (personal communication, 2012).
38 Some authors broadly in this spirit are Buyse (2015); Goldschmidt (2012); Nickel
(2007); Sikkink (2011, 2017), and also Beitz (2009); Gilabert (2009); Shue (1996).
Goodale (ed., 2014) discusses both strong and more problematic aspects of human
rights.
39 See www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/component/content/article/35-r2pcs-
topics/5356-african-arguments-how-did-rwandas-genocide-change-our-world- (consulted
30 December 2019).
40 Few people would now say otherwise for the intervention in Iraq in 2003, but more
generally speaking, grounds for debate about human rights and intervention remain.
In any case, and just to be sure: I do not think that a concern for realizing human
rights can by itself justify forceful intervention. Additional conditions should always
be met (cf. the jus ad bellum of the just war tradition, e.g. Orend 2005).
41 For the UK as an example, see ‘The Guardian view on human rights and foreign
policy: do the right thing, not the easy one’, Editorial, the Guardian, 5 April 2016;
and more generally, see e.g. Klaas (2016).
42 See www.amnesty.org.nz/tools-torture (consulted 30 December 2019).
43 I have already assumed as much when saying that the present book’s conception of
human rights, as articulating the minimum requirements of global justice, is likely to
be to a certain extent revisionist vis-à-vis the post-WWII practice of human rights
(although there are various reasons for the revisionism); cf. Ch. 2 above.
44 It may be objected that human rights are not really ‘our house’, or rather, the ‘global
house’: that human rights are not yet the overwhelmingly influential international
practice that articulates, among other things, the main requirements for living
together globally – and that, then, also guides activism, in certain cases justifies force-
ful intervention, etc. But, for better or worse, human rights do often seem to do these
things and I do not see any other principles for living together on a global scale that
are nearly as influential internationally.
 Common challenges to human rights  39
45 Besides, ‘starting anew’ might ameliorate some shortcomings (such as the omission
of environmental concerns from the UDHR) that arose because of historical contin-
gencies and often stayed around thereafter.
46 What exactly is a major and minor repair, or what counts as starting anew, would
need further discussion. So does, of course, the question of exactly what can(not) be
achieved by repairs as opposed to starting anew. All this must await a future occa-
sion. The general suggestion for now is that, if something is not totally broken, more
or less local fixes can be tried.
Part II
Novel challenges to
human rights
4 The challenge of global inequality

This chapter will be concerned with the question of whether (and if so how) a
non-hypocritical commitment to human rights can be achieved in a world of
great global inequalities in human rights protection; and where (many of) those
inequalities seem to be brought about by features of that world that we would
often seek to uphold, notably by the central place of states in that world. I will
call this the challenge of global inequality; it could, as will become clear, also
have been called the challenge of (non-)hypocrisy.
It is obvious that we – myself and the readers of this book – want to be com-
mitted to human rights non-hypocritically (in a way to be explained precisely in
a moment). Otherwise, how could we really embrace human rights as a vision of
minimal justice for the world and sincerely try to ensure that human rights are
ever more realized? Hence the importance of providing a satisfactory answer to
the challenge that this chapter is about.
But why would it be problematic in the first place to achieve a non-hypocritical
commitment to human rights in a world of great inequalities? Three steps are
needed to explain this.
First of all, many of us are committed to a world made up of largely sover-
eign states, that is, of states which commonly make the ultimate decisions about
what happens within their borders and which are in a number of ways equals in
international affairs. This is of course a very rough approximation: there could
(for instance) be, as there is in our present world, an elaborate system of inter-
national law and supranational institutions, as well as huge power imbalances
between states. Yet the broad picture could still be one of a world of largely
sovereign states, and most of us are not willing – more about this shortly – to
abandon it in favour of a world state or some other kind of mainly supranational
system where states only play a minor role.
Second, we are, at the same time, also committed to human rights, which
profess, and this is one of their most central features, that all human beings are
fundamentally equal – however exactly one may want to put this: in terms of
equality of status, equality of dignity, equality of rights, etc.1 This must, I take it,
at least mean that the important interests of all human beings matter a lot
(‘equality’), and that reliably protecting the interests (‘rights’) of all humans matters
a lot (‘equality’ again). Typically, the idea of equality takes the following
44  Novel challenges to human rights
stronger form: when one is talking about those protections of very important
interests that are a matter of human rights there is the equality constraint that
people must receive the same protections whenever their need for protection is
the same. It is this stronger idea (an example follows below and further develop-
ment of the notion in Section 4.1) that I will, in this chapter, always be referring
to when talking about equality of protection.2
Yet, third and last, states will in a largely state-based system always come to
differ greatly in their wealth and in the quality of institutional – legal, etc. –
­protections provided (of course this needs to be, and will be, argued for); so there
will foreseeably be large and large-scale differences between countries with
regard to the protections that people receive of their important interests, even
where one is dealing with interests and protections that are so important that
they qualify – even given alternative claims on limited resources – as a matter of
human rights. Put differently, there is no equal protection in the sense explained
above. To visualize this lack of equal protection by way of an example from the
present world: in Sweden, everyone who needs renal dialysis will likely get it,
and this seems a matter of human rights. At the same time, it is unlikely that
everyone who needs renal dialysis will get it in Zambia.3 One could also give
examples of receiving protections of having enough and good enough food or
examples that concern getting a fair trial, etc. Moreover, these inequalities of
protection between countries are often great as well as large-scale; and they are
not only foreseeable, but even structurally engendered by a world order impor-
tantly consisting of largely sovereign states. Against this background, it seems to
be hard to be committed both to human rights, with their demands of equality of
protection, and to a world order that foreseeably and structurally engenders great
and large-scale inequalities of protection.
Yet suppose that we remain committed to a largely state-based world order,
and act accordingly. Then this may invite the charge of hypocrisy when it comes
to our commitment to human rights, if we do not act equally much on this com-
mitment. Hypocrisy is meant here in the sense of not putting one’s deeds where
one’s words are: we pay lip-service to human rights, but our actions mainly help
to uphold a world order – and may even be intended to do that4 – which is in
important respects in tension with human rights.5
This chapter’s aim is to investigate how, if at all, a non-hypocritical commit-
ment to human rights can be achieved. It is, as will be defended below, not so
easy to let go of a commitment to a largely state-based world order and to advo-
cate, say, a world state instead.6 It is also not easy to abandon the idea that
human rights demand some robust form of equality of all humans as typically
expressed in the idea of equality of protection – that, if certain protections are
important enough to qualify, also given alternative claims on limited resources,
as a matter of human rights, then this should be so for all human beings in all
countries. Thus, both commitments seem hard to abandon; that is what makes
this chapter’s undertaking of interest.7
The chapter will proceed as follows. First, it will be explained in detail just
why and when a largely state-based world order provides a problem for equality
 The challenge of global inequality  45
of protection (Section 4.1). Second, the chapter will discuss what the solution
should be: get away from such a world order, get away from equal protection –
and thus from human rights? – or a particular mixture? (Section 4.2) I will
indeed defend a particular mixed solution and then, thirdly, consider and answer
some important objections to it (Section 4.3). For example, the mixed solution
sometimes loosens the requirement of equal protection of very important inter-
ests, and even regards doing so as compatible with human rights. But in doing
so, doesn’t it unjustifiably leave people out in the cold whose interests are most
vulnerable to threats? Finally, the chapter’s conclusion summarizes its findings
and outlines how a non-hypocritical commitment to human rights is, in the end,
possible. It also indicates some points to be taken up in future research.

4.1 A largely state-based world order and equal human

rights protection: a tension?
Equal protection in the sense of receiving the same protection of very important
interests if one’s need for protection is the same (for example, in the case of two
persons who equally need renal dialysis or access to a fair trial) is the sense of equal
protection that many people – for example, many activists, policymakers and aca-
demics such as philosophers – often have in mind when thinking of the equality
that human rights require. This chapter will focus specifically on equal protection
between countries, that is, on one specific form of equal protection in the sense just
indicated.8 This specific form also seems, as operating in the background of the idea
of progressive realization, to be part of the post-World War II practice of human
rights (which, to interpret, however, is not this book’s intention9). The idea of pro-
gressive realization is found most prominently in the International Covenant on
Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, which says that each state should:

… take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation,

especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources,
with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights
recognized in the present Covenant….
(Art. 2)

The idea seems to be that there is, in principle, a clear idea of what a right to
food, to health or to work requires in the way of protections against threats and
that everyone in need of these protections should get them. Less protection may
only be provided for a short period of time, where there is a lack of resources.
(Tellingly, the idea of progressive realization is absent in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, presumably because these rights are –
very dubiously10 – thought to be less dependent on the availability of resources.
However, most important in the present context, the idea in this Covenant is
again one of equal protection in the sense indicated above: everyone in the same
need should get the same protections/guarantees of getting a fair trial, having
freedom of expression, etc.)
46  Novel challenges to human rights
It may already be noted that the idea of equal protection in the sense of
people getting the same protection of their important interests when their need
for protection is the same is stronger than the idea that the protection of all peo-
ple’s interests matters a lot, regardless of whose interests they are. Of this latter
idea of equality, I said that it is in any case a central feature of human rights. The
divergence between the two ideas indicates that there may be some room to relax
the stronger idea – the requirement of equal protection in the sense indicated –
without falling out with human rights. (Indeed, this is exactly what the idea of
progressive realization suggests for certain non-ideal circumstances.)
However, before investigating, in Section 4.2 below, whether such relaxation
could or should indeed be undertaken (and if so, when) I want first to further
examine the tension between equal protection and a largely state-based world
order. I want to argue that there is indeed a tension and I will do this by outlin-
ing one central type of case where equal human rights protection seems
unachievable.11 This case has the following characteristics:

1. States are largely sovereign, which means most importantly that they
usually have the final word about what happens on their own territory, with
forceful outside interference being the exception rather than the rule (this is
one sense in which states are ‘equals’12). This also means that a large part of
the duties for fulfilling the human rights of those on their territory (or
perhaps for their citizens13) will fall to states.14
2. A situation of largely sovereign states will – this is the second characteristic
of the case – inevitably lead to differences in human rights protection. Some
states will maintain the rule of law better and more effectively than others;
some states will grow richer and have more resources for human rights reali-
zation at their disposal than others. It is important that to say all this is not to
assume that a country’s institutional structure and wealth are entirely shaped
by domestic factors, such as a country’s political culture, work ethic, etc.; also
if international factors have a considerable influence and if the international
structure is just (which it now notoriously is not15), differences in human
rights realization will still arise. They will arise as long as domestic factors
have a clear influence, too; and it is very probable that they do.16
3. A third characteristic is that assistance by outside states or other outside
agents cannot make up for all the differences in human rights protection
between states. Is it plausible that they cannot? As Mathias Risse observes,
it is often very hard to determine just what outside assistance can and
cannot do.17 But it is very unlikely that it can erase all differences in human
rights protection, all the more so if (as must be demanded) it is done with
due respect for a country and its people and if (as we have been assuming)
the state that receives it remains largely sovereign.
4. Given 1–3, it would still be possible to achieve equality of protection of
human rights by providing people in all countries with equally little protec-
tion. Even the least well-functioning, least prosperous state could provide
protection if the level required was extremely low. Obviously, however,
 The challenge of global inequality  47
such ‘levelling down’ is unacceptable; achieving equality by offering
everyone hardly any protection at all is a twisted idea of justice.18

Now the case just outlined not only looks much like our current world, but it
may apply even to the most just world order. To explain: the most just world
order, it is usually thought, will, in any case, be no world state; it is even likely,
many think, to hold on to largely sovereign states. The question is whether that
is correct and, depending on how that turns out, how to continue with our com-
mitment to human rights. These are the matters to which we will now turn.

4.2 A largely state-based world order and

human rights: reconsidering our commitments
Suppose that, as suggested in the previous section, there is indeed a degree of
incompatibility between a world order of largely sovereign states and equality of
protection received as a matter of human rights (equality of protection in the
sense that, without levelling down, two people who similarly stand in need of a
certain protection of an important interest do receive the same protection). We
can then (1) revise our commitment to a world order importantly based on
largely sovereign states; or (2) revise our commitment to human rights or to the
idea that human rights call for equal protection; or (3) we can, in a sense that
needs to be explained further, do a bit of both.19 I will discuss these three options
in turn and argue, perhaps not very surprisingly, that the third route should be
taken and also, more particularly, how. However, it is important to stress from
the outset that the tension between a state-based world order and equal human
rights protection is not everywhere: as will be argued below, in a just inter-
national world, the differences in human rights protection between states will
only go so far, and outside assistance will also be able to achieve a lot.
Option 1) Revising our commitment to a world order of largely sovereign
states. One could continue emphatically to endorse the idea that, whenever
people stand in equal need of protection of an important interest of theirs, the
protection provided should be equal. If it is correct that a largely state-based
world order cannot always provide such equal protection, one could then advo-
cate a different world order, and any charge of hypocrisy could perhaps dis-
appear. I see four alternative world orders (all to be explained further): a world
state; a world order based on subsidiarity; world governance; and anarchy. I will
discuss the first two in detail and end up dismissing them (although for subsidi-
arity only to an important extent) and I will then dismiss the third and fourth
alternative almost immediately. The next section will then, among other things,
reconsider whether a largely state-based world order could not be compatible
with equal protection of important interests after all. As elsewhere in the book, I
will be talking about ideal theory, that is, about a world where people have been
ideally socialized and where, more generally, institutions are the best that can be
achieved with the kind of beings that humans are.20 Thus, the discussion is not
about whether it is a good idea immediately to institute a world state (to take just
48  Novel challenges to human rights
this example) and also not primarily about the question of how a transformation
from our current world order to a world state could and should be effected –
although some things will be said about transformation as well.
I imagine a world state to look like a state as we know it now. It would gener-
ally have the last say over things happening within its territory and be able to
employ forceful sanctions to enforce that things go its way. (But of course, the
idea of a state being equal to other states would fall away for a world state.) This
idea of a world state has met with a lot of philosophical criticism, part of which
is so well-known that it is by now a cliché: the Kantian/Rawlsian idea that a
world state would be either powerless or a dictatorship;21 the idea that a world
state would be a threat to cultural diversity; and the idea that there is nothing
outside a world state, so that, if things go wrong with it, they go wrong every-
where. But the most important objection, to my mind, is one that I take from
Mathias Risse and will call the terra incognita objection.22 Risse states that we
do not know enough about what a world state would look like and what its
morally relevant advantages and disadvantages would be to be able to advocate
it – even as an ideal gradually to be approximated and to be fully realized only
in the long run. Appearances are deceptive here, says Risse: if one models a
world state after states as one knows them, one might think that one understands
well what such an institutional arrangement would involve. In fact, however, the
differences with the largely state-based world order that we do know are vast; a
world state would blow such a world order apart and we cannot really imagine
with any certainty what the new world order would look like. So, we cannot
with any reasonable assurance endorse it as an institutional ideal after all.
I accept this point.23 Yet there is an important objection, which Risse himself
raises, but which he deals with very unsatisfactorily.24 Basically, the problem is
whether his reasoning should not also have led people before the French Revolu-
tion, or before the abolition of slavery, to oppose any very large institutional
changes that would lead the social world as it then was into a terra incognita.
Risse says that we cannot sufficiently imagine a ‘world without countries’ to
advocate it as an ideal;25 but that, still, people in the past were right to seek the
demise of the Ancien Régime and the abolition of slavery. He also suggests that
we do not know what exactly the differences are between changes that should
and changes that should not be tried.
But a better answer is surely required here, since, presumably, for many
people living under the Ancien Régime and possibly also for many people in
slaveholding societies, certain social changes were in good faith, and sometimes
with good reason, seen as a leap in the dark. My own answer would go in the
direction that, first, the case for change is greater the more inhuman, degrading
or horrible the prevailing situation is for at least certain categories of people,
such as slaves in societies with slavery. Second, there still also needs to be some
reasonable assurance that the changes advocated are not going to make matters
even worse. The more inhumane, etc. – or also connected with imminence of
greatly inhumane situations, and the larger-scale – the practices are that stand to
be changed, the less sure one needs to be about the alternatives; but one still
 The challenge of global inequality  49
needs to pick an alternative that seems (also in the longer run) least risky in
terms of harm, etc. Genocide and rampant murder need to be stopped fast and
almost no matter what. Some other horrible situations prevalent in the current
world order are not so far removed from this and also need to be changed almost
no matter what. One may, for example, think of widespread destitution, violence
in war zones or exploitation in modern-day slavery.26 However, it seems to me
that in order to halt such horrors, one needs no world state, but that a more
modest reshaping of the world order could be enough.27 If so, Risse’s terra
incognita objection could still stand for a world state.
A second alternative for a world of largely sovereign states would be a world
order based on subsidiarity, by which I mean a world order where everything is
done at the lowest possible level where it can still be done in a just way.28 ‘Just’,
in this context, is to be understood with human rights as an articulation of the
minimum standards of global justice. When speaking of a ‘level’, I am thinking
of national, provincial and local levels, etc. A rather close real-world approximation
of such an order of subsidiarity may be found in the example of federal states,
such as in the USA or Germany – or, also, in certain ways, in a complicated
institutional set-up such as the EU.29 In federal states, a lot of things are done at
a state (or Bundesland, etc.) level, but also a lot at the federal level.
Someone might argue that certain commonly mentioned disadvantages of a
world state (for example, that it is too powerful or else has no effective power at
all; or that, if things go wrong, they go wrong everywhere) would be avoided or
at least mitigated in a world organized on the basis of subsidiarity. And also, that
a subsidiarity-based world order could preserve some alleged advantages of a
world state (which have not been addressed at all yet), for example that it might
effectively overcome certain coordination problems that remain in a largely
state-based world order. Or, which is of course particularly important in the
present context, that a world state might eliminate differences in the reliable pro-
tection of important interests that would arise in a largely state-based world
order.30 A world order based on subsidiarity could preserve such advantages
because, in this world order, problems that need to be solved on a higher level
will be delegated to that level. So, if solving coordination problems or realizing
human rights protection requires moving beyond the national level or even
‘going global’, this is – unless there are strong countervailing reasons – what
will be done. One could think, in short, that a subsidiarity-based world order
may be defended as offering both the advantages of a world state vis-à-vis a
world order of largely sovereign states and the advantages of a state-based world
order vis-à-vis a world state. However, this way of putting it cannot stand if the
terra incognita objection holds for a world state. But one can still point to
certain advantages of a subsidiarity-based world order vis-à-vis one based on
largely sovereign states; and one can point out that a subsidiarity-based world
order avoids certain problems, such as a too great concentration of power.
Yet a number of questions arise about a world order based on subsidiarity. Is
it possible to find an appropriate level for everything that needs to be done? Or
will it frequently be unclear what the appropriate level could be? Is it clear how
50  Novel challenges to human rights
the different levels should interact and work together, and why? And will not
very many things in the end be assigned to a very high (world state-like) level,
so that in practice we get something close to a world state after all? In addition,
there are political questions:31 who decides about the level at which something
should be done? How, and with what checks and balances, does decision making
at the various levels function exactly? Etc. And more important than the prob-
lems to which these questions may point is the problem that Risse’s terra incog-
nita point may, on reflection, apply to a world order based on subsidiarity as
well, albeit perhaps less than to a world state. Such a world order, too, takes us
quite some distance from the institutional arrangements that we know, so that it
is very difficult to grasp with any reasonable assurance what its advantages and
disadvantages could be. It is true that we do know federal states, and these are
much closer to a subsidiarity-based world order than to a world state. But the
leap is still great, inasmuch as federal states do, among other things, of
course not comprise the entire world. On the other hand, if one is effectively to
solve certain urgent problems of coordination and collective action – think of
current examples such as mitigating climate change, preventing economic crises,
etc. – one does need to take some significant steps away from a largely state-
based world order. Weak legal, etc. supranational arrangements (think of the
Kyoto and Paris treaties) are not going to be enough. If so, this will mitigate the
force of the terra incognita objection; but it will retain some force nonetheless
as, sometimes, institutional arrangements that are considerably closer to the ones
that (have) exist(ed) – for example, strengthened existing international institutions –
could be used to solve urgent problems.32
Other arrangements besides a world state and a world order based on subsidi-
arity are sometimes advocated, and I want to consider two – world governance
and anarchy.33 The former refers to a network-like structure of distributed
responsibilities that are then coordinated in various ways, not only vertically but
also more horizontally. This is my rendition of what world governance is rather
than someone else’s, and if it is somewhat or considerably vague that is because,
as far as I can see, the idea of world governance is vague. It is simply not very
clear who should do what and how it is all to fit together in one coordinated
whole. Now, it is a laudable endeavour to want to involve agents other than
states and supranational structures that somehow look much like states; and this
is an attraction of world governance.34 Still, the notion as it stands seems too
vague to be very useful.
As for the idea of anarchy, it is not so vague as to be indefensible for that
reason. Anarchy is understood here as the absence of any power – be it a
­‘conventional’ state, a world state, a subsidiarity-based order or some other
entity – which can, in a relatively well-defined way, effectively impose its will
over some territory or substantive domain. A long argument would surely be needed
to actually show that anarchy in this sense is indefensible, but this is beyond the
present context. In any case, though, enough of Hobbes’s bleak diagnosis35 sur-
vives to think that coordination problems often cannot be solved effectively
without some clear authority, and that, although in certain circumstances more
 The challenge of global inequality  51
bottom-up arrangements such as shared norms or customs can substitute for
more top-down state-like arrangements,36 this will certainly not always be the
case.
The upshot of the discussion so far is that the search for alternatives to a state-
based world order has to a great extent remained fruitless, with only a subsidiarity-
based alternative holding some promise. Thus, a largely state-based world order
may well have to remain around. Let us, then, consider a second way to resolve
the tension between a state-based world order and human rights.
Option 2) This second way is to give up our commitment to human rights or
to the idea that human rights require some ambitious form of equal protection.
Giving up one’s commitment to human rights altogether would obviously dis-
solve the tension. However, the aim of the present inquiry is exactly to find out
whether there can be other ways of resolving it. Therefore, the more promising
way to go in the present context would be to find out whether, or to what extent,
one can have a sincere commitment to human rights without also being com-
mitted to equal protection, or while being committed to equal protection only in
some qualified way. I think it is implausible to deny that human rights in any
case require that one subscribes to (what may be called) the fundamental equal-
ity, equal dignity or equal moral status of all human beings, understood (all three
synonymously) as meaning that the important interests of all human beings and
the protection of those interests matter a lot, regardless of whose interests they
are.37 Now, the question is whether subscribing to fundamental equality in the
sense just indicated requires that one also subscribes to equal protection in the
above sense, that is to say, to the notion that people’s important interests are to
receive the same protection whenever their need for protection is the same.38
My answer is negative. One can subscribe to fundamental equality and still
agree with equal protection sometimes being withheld – there may be sufficiently
good reasons to withhold it. Yet in the absence of such reasons, equal protection
must be provided, if one takes fundamental equality seriously at all; and the
burden of proof will be on the party that favours unequal protection (where I
always assume that she, too, is committed to fundamental equality).
An example can make all this clearer. Imagine a mother who cares equally
about all her children.39 They, and the protection of their important interests, all
matter equally to her. However, there may still be reasons to provide more pro-
tection to one child than another, even if their need for protection is the same.
The most obvious reason may be that the mother can only provide equal protection
of her children’s interests by providing them all with equally little protection.
Then unequal protection may be better.
Very importantly, however, the mother does need such reasons. If she pro-
vides more protection to one child than to another without having good reasons,
one must doubt that she really cares equally about her children. In other words,
fundamental equality does imply equal protection unless there are really good
reasons to the contrary. This, in effect, puts the burden of proof – the allocation
of which is always important and tricky – on those who want to say that funda-
mental equality and unequal protection can in a particular case go together. The
52  Novel challenges to human rights
example of the mother shows why this allocation of the burden of proof is
justified.
Thus, in certain cases, a non-hypocritical commitment to human rights may
be maintained while abandoning equal protection. For in certain cases there will
be good reasons, or it may even be necessary, not to provide equal protection,
however much one would like to. Here is an important example: if there are
good reasons for advocating a largely state-based world order and if, in such an
order, equal protection can sometimes not be provided without levelling down
(or engaging in highly morally problematic foreign intervention), then that con-
stitutes a case for sometimes abandoning equal protection. However, this is not,
to my mind, a case of abandoning a commitment to human rights. One upholds
both a commitment to the fundamental equality of all human beings and to equal
protection, generally speaking.
Option 3) A third way? In the end, then, it seems that possibilities come into
sight of resolving the tension that do not involve abandoning either commitment –
that to a world order of states and that to human rights. Or it may be better to say
that what we are beginning to see is a mixed solution, a third way that does a bit
of both, inasmuch as a world order of largely sovereign states with the concomitant
inequalities of protection will not in all instances be accepted, but sometimes
elements of a subsidiarity-based world order are to be embraced – where, in the
present context, this most importantly means that certain things should be
done at a supranational level. When, more precisely, should this be the case? In
line with what was said above, this would be in cases where two conditions are
met (and sometimes already when only the first one is met): (1) There are urgent
problems, often concerning the protection of very many people’s very important
interests (think of climate change mitigation, averting economic crises40) and
serious coordination – or other issues will arise if those problems are not dealt
with at a higher level than the national level. (2) There are good reasons to think
that there are supranational solutions to these problems – solutions that to a
considerable degree draw on institutions that are in line with the ideal of subsidi-
arity and that are also not so far from existing institutions (think, for example, of
solutions found in federal states of which there is good reason to suppose that
they could work globally as well) so that the terra incognita objection has little
force.41
Now, if a world order is advocated where some things are done at or near the
global level – such as a subsidiarity-based world order – this may well benefit
equality of protection. For instance, everyone will benefit where climate change
mitigation action is effectively realized internationally. And since many are
equally threatened by climate change, this will often mean equality of protection
in the sense that, across countries, people who need the same protection will
receive it.42 By contrast, there will continue to be quite some inequalities of pro-
tection when, as should often be the case, things are left to sovereign states –
one may, for example, think of measures to secure food provision. For states
will not function equally adequately everywhere and there is only so much that
outside assistance can do.
 The challenge of global inequality  53
4.3 Some objections
I have argued that, in cases with certain specific characteristics, one may have
very good reasons to withhold equal protection – in the sense of different
people, in different countries, receiving the same protection of their important
interests whenever their need for protection is the same. This would fit the
above example of the mother who is committed to the fundamental equality
of all her children (in the sense that, with all of them, protecting their
important interests matters a lot) and for whom this does translate into equal
protection in the above sense – unless there are good enough reasons not
to provide such equal protection. To recall, the cases considered have the
­following characteristics:

1) there are good reasons to stick to a world order of largely sovereign states; and
2) this inevitably leads to certain inequalities in protection of human rights
between states; and
3) these cannot be entirely eliminated by (duly respectful etc.) external
assistance
4) unless a very low level of protection were to be provided for everyone; but
there are good reasons to deem this impermissible.

Characteristic 1 was already extensively examined above. I will now

examine characteristics 2, 3 and 4 once more and see what objections they may
give rise to.
Concerning Characteristic 2, couldn’t we assume that, in an ideal world,
political cultures, the work ethic, etc. would be rather similar everywhere? If so,
differences in wealth and institutional quality would be minimal (and outside
assistance might also be able permissibly to achieve more if political cultures,
etc. were rather similar everywhere; but I will not pursue this here). To evaluate
this thought, we would have to estimate how great the diversity of societies and
cultures would be in an ideal world, at least at points that lead to differences in
wealth and in the protection of very important interests. This is hard – but there
is a fair chance that, in a world of largely sovereign states, people’s free use of
their thinking and judgement abilities will lead to a considerable and permanent
pluralism of social and cultural orders and of ways of life,43 also in respects that
will influence wealth, etc.44 Thus, social and cultural diversity may well be there
to stay, and then a largely state-based global order and equal human rights pro-
tection remain in tension.
Characteristic 3: One may also reconsider what foreign assistance could do
(within the bounds, of course, of what is permissible); and if, on renewed
inspection, this is virtually everything – as an objector might suggest – then
there will in ideal circumstances be virtually no scope for inequality of protection
in the above sense. Now there are indeed many things that outside assistance
may permissibly do. It is perhaps sometimes conceivable, for example, that
almost all arrangements that a country would need to adapt to climate change
54  Novel challenges to human rights
could be put in place and maintained by foreigners. But in other cases, there will
be limits: even if foreigners could run a country’s entire education system, in
perpetuity, this is unlikely to be permissible as it undercuts that country’s self-
determination, in the sense of its people being able to determine their own course
into the future.45 Or it may also, for example, be impermissible because it encour-
ages certain parties (such as the government of the country in question) to shirk
what are plausibly their duties, and this may, among other things, lead to much
worse outcomes in the longer run. Here, too, it is hard to say how many things
exactly outside assistance can and cannot permissibly do; but there will, in any
case, remain some limited scope for inequalities of protection.
There is an additional consideration: perhaps countries are sometimes morally
allowed to withhold assistance they could permissibly provide – e.g. financial
assistance with setting up a better healthcare system in a foreign country. With-
holding such permissible assistance might be allowed because governments may
arguably to a certain extent be partial to their own citizens. Many would even go
so far as to say that a government may permissibly give precedence to non-human
rights concerns of citizens over realizing human rights for foreigners. However, I
want to suggest that it is very well possible that – at least in ideal circumstances –
all global inequalities of human rights protection that can permissibly be remedied
through foreign assistance should indeed be remedied.
Let me explain why that would be so. Realizing human rights for a country’s
own citizens will always only take up a limited part of a country’s wealth and of
its technological and institutional resources; a society that spends all of its
means on protecting important interests is an unlivable society, with no place for
somewhat less important or more frivolous things. To be sure, it is very plaus-
ible that a society should spend a considerable part of its resources (financial,
technological, institutional, etc.46) on protecting important interests; but this part
should, although considerable, nonetheless be limited and there should be ample
free space and breathing room left.47 In other words, a lot of room will remain
for other concerns. A consequence of this is that, even if a rich and institution-
ally well-functioning country provides some meaningful foreign assistance, it
will still be able to attend to many non-human rights interests of its citizens. It
can incidentally be noted that – although there should, as said, also be room for
less important or even frivolous matters – many of these non-human rights inter-
ests are quite important. One may, for instance, think of providing very expen-
sive cancer medicines – something which may, because the medicines are so
costly, well fall out of human rights, but which often still remains (literally)
vitally important. However, a cause such as providing these medicines is not
to be regarded as being in competition with providing meaningful foreign
assistance. For, in a rich and institutionally well-functioning country, many
important (but non-human rights) interests of citizens can be attended to com-
patibly with providing such assistance. To be sure, if one rich country alone
would have to provide all the foreign assistance that is permissible, the
important interests of its citizens and that assistance would conflict. But in
ideal circumstances, all rich countries will likely do their fair share. If so, it is
 The challenge of global inequality  55
well possible that, in ideal circumstances at least, all the foreign assistance that
may permissibly be provided ought also to be provided.48
Now, someone might argue that the case that a rich country should provide
meaningful foreign assistance still falls away because the resources concerned
could always be spent for the benefit of that country’s own citizens instead.
However, to regard this by itself as a good enough reason would surely take par-
tiality towards citizens too far.49
Characteristic 4: I have just talked about countries that are sufficiently rich
and that are institutionally well-functioning enough – and, one may also add,
technologically advanced enough – to realize human rights for those within their
borders. This raises the question of what level of protection should be required
as a matter of human rights. This level must not, I argued above, be so low as to
be amply affordable by countries with the least resources (financial, technolo-
gical, institutional). That would be ‘levelling down’ to the lowest common
denominator. But someone might ask whether this would really be morally prob-
lematic. More generally, what reasons are there, in the end, to set the require-
ments of human rights protection at one level rather than another?
There are, I believe, at least three levels at which human rights protections
may not defensibly be set, and there is one at which they may be set, when we
think of a world where there are considerable wealth disparities (and technolo-
gical and institutional disparities50) between countries. One indefensible level, as
said, is a very low level across the board: it would not be acceptable that, also in
very rich countries, only a very minimal level of protections (say, of a decent
standard of living or of receiving a fair trial) would count as a matter of human
rights. This would be a paradigm case of achieving equal treatment by treating
everyone equally badly, which is morally problematic inasmuch as it makes a
mockery of the idea that it matters to protect very important interests. It is a
mockery because too often very important interests may, as far as human rights
are concerned, go unprotected that could very easily be protected.
Second, it would be indefensible to set the requirements of human rights pro-
tection at a different level for rich countries than for poor countries. This would
be tantamount to stating that unequal protection is justifiable. But one needs
arguments for this; and if one starts out by setting a differential level of protec-
tion, one assumes it. It is, therefore, better to start out with a globally uniform
level and subsequently to consider whether there are good enough reasons to
depart from it in certain situations.
Third, it is also indefensible to set the (initially globally uniform) required
level of human rights protection so high that, given the global wealth – and other
relevant resources such as technology – aggregately available in the world, it
could not possibly be realized everywhere in the world. Then the level is clearly
set too high.
The level that is acceptable will be one that is quite close to a level that
would be set in a rich country if one were to consider that country on its own. At
least, this level will be acceptable as long as its provision in the whole world is
amply affordable given the wealth, and also technological resources, aggregately
56  Novel challenges to human rights
available on earth. (To clarify, it could be that, for example, there is so much
wealth in the USA or North-Western Europe that, in so far as it depends on the
wealth, it would be sufficient for realizing a near-rich-country level of human
rights protection everywhere in the world.) That something like this level is the
acceptable one follows from the unacceptability of the three levels just dis-
cussed. Just how close this level would come to a rich-country level is a moot
point and largely an empirical matter. I believe that it may come quite close if it
is correct that, as some say, a small percentage of the global GDP spent on over-
seas assistance would already suffice, as far as money is concerned, to eradicate
global poverty; so it seems that one can already get rather far with limited finan-
cial resources.51
The same may well be true for technological resources. But, if one were also
to take the institutional capacities available for everywhere as a reference point,
the baseline of protection would have to be lowered drastically. I think that this
would come too close to protecting everyone equally by protecting everyone
equally badly; and therefore, what institutional capacities are available for
everywhere should not be incorporated into the baseline (of what protections are
required as a matter of human rights). Leaving institutional capacities out will
lead to a rather high baseline and it paves the way for inequalities of protection
sometimes being permissible. That is a price that should be accepted – although
some may make different judgements here.52

4.4 To conclude
In the end, the chapter’s initial thesis remains standing: there will, even in an
ideal world, be some scope for inequalities in the protection of human rights
because:

1) there would be likely to remain largely sovereign states, and they will be
providing many of the human rights protections;
2) there will remain differences among these states regarding their wealth,
state of technology and institutional capacities to provide effective
protections;
3) these differences cannot be entirely eliminated by outside assistance;
4) unless the protection required as a matter of human rights were reduced to a
very low level across the board, which would, however, be impermissible.

If one takes all this together, providing unequal protections will in certain cases
be allowed even if one is committed to the fundamental equality of all human
beings and also to the provision of equal protection in general. This dissolves the
hypocrisy charge. For, to be sure, and as argued above, a sincere commitment to
human rights does imply a commitment to the fundamental equality of all human
beings, in the sense that the protection of their important interests matters a lot
regardless of whose interests they are. It also, as the example of the mother and her
children shows, implies a commitment to providing equal protection in the sense
 The challenge of global inequality  57
that people receive the same protection of their important interests whenever their
need for protection is the same.53 That is, such a commitment to equal protection is
implied unless there are very good reasons not to provide equal protection. Now,
the four points just mentioned do, in conjunction, provide just such reasons. Thus,
accepting unequal protection in cases where it is necessary based on this conjunc-
tion is compatible with a sincere commitment to human rights. It is not a matter of
having a commitment to human rights while one’s actions are guided by some-
thing else.
To say that very good reasons – indeed very good reasons – are needed to
deviate from equal protection is to say that the burden of proof is on those who
want to deviate from it.54 If two persons, one in Sweden and one in Zambia, are
both equally direly in need of renal dialysis, and one were to accept without very
good reasons that human rights require that it be provided in Sweden while in
Zambia provision is not required, it may really be doubted that one has a sincere
commitment to the fundamental equality of all human beings and thus to human
rights.
Finally, couldn’t the hypocrisy point have been dissolved much more
quickly? Is it not immediately clear that human rights only demand equal protection –
in this chapter’s sense – if there aren’t very good reasons to deviate from such
protection? And, is it not equally clear that sometimes there are indeed such
reasons, most importantly perhaps that there are good reasons to embrace a
world order of largely sovereign states, and that such a world order and the reali-
zation of equal protection are sometimes incompatible? If so, it is immediately
clear that one is not hypocritical if one is committed to human rights and also to
a world order of largely sovereign states.
My answer to this objection is straightforward: it is not immediately clear
that human rights do demand equal protection unless there are very good reasons
to deviate from it – it is not even clear what exactly equal protection might
mean. Similarly, it is not immediately clear that a world order based on largely
sovereign states, even if it is reasonably clear what such a world order looks
like, is frequently to be embraced, nor is it clear right away that such a world
order sometimes makes the provision of equal protection impossible. In other
words, this chapter’s central claims do need argument, as well as frequent clari-
fication at a conceptual level, and the chapter has aimed to provide just that.
Now, some have told me that it does not empower vulnerable people very
much to say that inequality of protection under human rights may be justified
where there are very – indeed very – good reasons. But it certainly does not
empower them very much either to ignore commitments that pull in different
directions. (Ignoring these is not very empowering even if one holds, as many
activists, lawyers and academics do, that human rights self-evidently require
equal protection in this chapter’s sense.55 Even then, overlooking structural
­obstacles to actually realizing equal protection surely cannot be all that empow-
ering.) I much prefer to say that sometimes, compatibly with a sincere commitment
to human rights, equal protection may be withheld – but only if there are very
good reasons. The emphasis should be on the need for very good reasons and
58  Novel challenges to human rights
that will hopefully help a lot to ensure that vulnerable people are not left out in
the cold.
This chapter has engaged with ideal circumstances. If, by contrast, one con-
siders our present, non-ideal world, one may say that many inequalities of pro-
tection found there are simply not justified (or, perhaps, only justified to some
extent or for the limited timespan in which it is really impossible to change them).
Such inequalities of protection may, for instance, be tied to global injustices –
such as rapacious regimes being propped up by foreign countries and the international
community – that we (often citizens of affluent countries, and the governments
and NGOs, etc. we can influence) should make considerable efforts to change
very soon.
As for the argument in ideal theory, one important task for future research
will be to investigate more precisely what a world order based on subsidiarity
could look like, and to what extent it can be clearly grasped, rather than remaining
largely unknown territory.56 What would its justice-relevant advantages and dis-
advantages be? And would there, in such a world order, really be fewer very
good reasons, compared with a state-based world order, to deviate from protecting
human rights equally for all human beings? For such equal protection evidently
remains what one would want.

Notes
1 For a recent author who has stressed this, see Buchanan (2013).
2 Rather than of equal protection, one might also speak of equivalent protection, in
order to explicitly indicate that different ways of providing protection could be more
or less equally good (although, looking in very much detail, they will all have advant-
ages and disadvantages of their own). Equal protection is, thus, not about the absence
of contextual differences (cf. Chs. 3 and 5) but of structural inequalities. ‘Protection’
generically refers here to all the human rights duties specified in Section 2.2 above –
negative, positive and intermediate.
Also, the notion of equal protection may evidently be understood in different ways.
One may, for instance, think of providing extra protections for those whose important
interests are particularly threatened. In addition, one may think of equality of protec-
tion (if it is understood as it is in the text: people receiving the same protection when-
ever their need for protection is the same) not only globally, but also within countries
and small-scale (between two specific persons). I will return to these different under-
standings in note 53 below.
3 This example is taken freely from Albie Sachs (2009, pp. 161ff.) who uses a some-
what similar example in the context, not of human rights, but of constitutional rights
in South Africa.
4 A commitment will typically consist of both words and deeds (and dispositions etc.),
where parts of the deeds (and also words) will be very consciously aimed at. This will
be so, for example, when someone does things to help realize human rights and to
stop violations of them. These deeds may thus be called intentional, but other deeds
and words will be less so.
5 If our commitments, in words and deeds, pull both ways, we may speak of double-
mindedness rather than hypocrisy. Incidentally, hypocrisy is thus not meant, in this
chapter, as reproaching somebody else for doing something that one also does
oneself.
 The challenge of global inequality  59
6 As indicated in Ch. 1, the present chapter (as well as the book as a whole) will mainly
be engaging in ideal theory. Obviously, however, the chapter has a number of
implications for our actual world with its great inequalities with regard to the protec-
tion of important interests.
7 The academic debates to which this chapter primarily speaks are in global justice. In
these debates, human rights are often regarded as minimum requirements of global
justice (see Ch. 2, note 14) and it is often regarded as evident, even by those authors
who do not endorse ambitious global requirements of justice or morality, that equal
human rights protection, more or less in the sense in which I have understood it, is a
global moral requirement (e.g. Nagel 2005; Miller 2007). At the same time, a world
state is almost universally rejected (see Section 4.2 below), and very often a largely
state-based world order is endorsed (see e.g. Nagel and Miller, as well as Nussbaum
2000). The tension between being committed to human rights and also to a largely
state-based world order is scarcely addressed in this literature, nor are, therefore, the
problems of hypocrisy to which this tension may give rise.
8 For some points about equal protection in different senses, see note 53.
9 See Ch. 2.
10 See Section 2.2 above.
11 There will, to be sure, be different sets of characteristics that could also lead to
inequality of protection under human rights that may turn out to be permissible; but
the set mentioned in the text constitutes a central type of case and I will restrict my
analysis to it.
12 There are a number of other aspects in which they are equals, but these are less rele­
vant here.
13 I will not further pursue the question of whether ‘those on their territory’ or ‘citizens’
is the better option.
14 That is, according to the account of duties outlined in Ch. 2.
15 See Pogge (2004), (2005), (2008); R. Miller (2010).
16 Cf. Risse (2005). Cf. Sen (1999), Chs. 5–7.
17 Risse (2005); Risse (2012), Ch. 7.
18 Cf. Parfit (1997).
19 Or perhaps there is yet another way out of the tension that I fail to see at present.
20 I take this notion of ideal theory, somewhat freely, from Rawls (1999b), pp. 4ff.
21 Rawls (1999b), p. 36. For the other objections, see Lu (2006).
22 Risse (2012), Ch. 3, esp. pp. 83–85.
23 This point also implies it is hard to evaluate the correctness of other alleged disadvan-
tages and advantages of a world state.
24 Risse (2012), p. 84.
25 Ibid.
26 Such things would have hardly any place in an ideal world, although possibly conflict
and hunger would not be entirely eradicated even there.
27 I lack the space here to develop this point further.
28 I do not aim to defend this conception of subsidiarity against alternatives (which
could e.g. emphasize some form of effectiveness rather than justice); I only outline
one conception that seems plausible and relevant. For various understandings of sub-
sidiarity, see e.g. Follesdal (2014); also cf. Pogge (1992).
29 The EU is complicated, among other things because matters of EU-wide concern are
in certain cases decided by EU institutions (such as the European Parliament, the
European Commission) and sometimes by the EU’s states together (e.g. Council of
the European Union; European Council). See e.g. Buonanno and Nugent (2013).
30 Incidentally, I am assuming here that a word state need not be very poor or ineffective.
If it were, equal protection of important interests as a world state could provide it,
would be equally bad protection for everyone.
31 Cf. Fraser (2008).
60  Novel challenges to human rights
32 For problems of transition, which are beyond the present scope, one could in a
number of cases envisage gradual institutional change away from the current world
order. While making the transition, our views of what is ideally possible will gradu-
ally come to change. For now, states remain in the picture there.
This chapter’s discussion illustrates that our grasp of ideal situations is not easy to
get and will always be partial (and shifting). Yet ideal theory is not, as such, to be
considered an ‘unknown land’ and ( pace Sen 2009) is important to form ideas as best
we can of where we’d want to go – while always being as explicit as possible about
what we do not know, how things may shift, etc.
33 Cf. (although rather for exposition than advocacy) Lu (2006) and Risse (2012), Ch.3,
respectively.
34 Although roles for such agents will often also be envisaged in a world order of
largely sovereign states or one based on subsidiarity.
35 In Leviathan, Ch. 13ff.
36 Cf. Ostrom (1990); (2005), esp. Ch. 9.
37 And not ‘twice a lot’ for anyone. I am not concerned here with surveying the possible
meanings of ‘fundamental equality’, ‘equal dignity’ and ‘equal moral status’ (expres-
sions that, as said, I used interchangeably), nor with clarifying the role that such con-
cepts may have for human rights (e.g. they could function, in a certain sense, as the
foundation of human rights); for very good discussions of human dignity see e.g.
Düwell et al. (2014); Riley (2016); McCrudden (2017); Göbel (2019). For the present
purposes, only one possible important meaning of fundamental equality etc. is
proposed.
38 Providing equal protection should, some will say, be regarded as a conceptual require-
ment of human rights. But this needs argument; otherwise, too much would be
decided by mere stipulation. One line of argument may be that one is no longer
talking about human rights if one allows unequal protection, because there would then
no longer be universally valid rights, equal for everyone everywhere. My answer is
that there can be a universally valid list of rights, even if one allows for unequal pro-
tection in certain cases. For such a list of rights can be relatively general (think e.g. of
the UDHR), stipulating only what interests are to be protected and roughly what kind
of protections are to be provided. By contrast, considerations about (in)equality of
protection are very often situated at a much more concrete level. See Chs. 3 and 5.
39 Of course, I could equally well have spoken of a father. This interpersonal example
will certainly have differences with human rights cases, which among other things
have many institutional aspects. And, importantly, a number of reasons will be relevant
in the mother case that have no relevance in human rights cases. But the example of
the mother can still illustrate how fundamental equality may be compatible with
unequal protection.
40 These are problems that will still need attention even in an ideally just world.
41 For, obviously, this objection should not be driven to the point of making all institu-
tional change impossible.
Why are inequalities of protection between countries themselves not a good reason
to move to subsidiarity-based solutions, if it can be done in accordance with (2)? I
imagine these inequalities, regardless of exactly how (in)frequent they would be, to
be pervasive instead of local, so that in effect nothing would be left of a largely state-
based world order and the terra incognita objection kicks in with full force after all.
Perhaps certain specific inequalities of protection between countries could be singled
out and addressed without things becoming pervasive; and perhaps addressing other
problems – such as, possibly, climate change, but it would be a large discussion
exactly which problems – will lead to pervasiveness as well. But that is beyond the
present scope.
42 However, inequality of protection in different senses, e.g. in the sense that people with a
greater need for protection should receive (some meaningfully) greater protection,
 The challenge of global inequality  61
will not necessarily be realized where coordination problems are solved through
supranational arrangements.
43 This is a guiding theme in Rawls’s (1999b) account of the international order and
how it should be shaped (my formulations are also very Rawlsian). Cf. also, to some
extent similarly, Rawls (1993), pp. 55–56 for an abiding plurality of conceptions of
the good in one liberal-democratic society.
44 And, if it did, there would be limits to what outside interference could permissibly do
to reduce that pluralism. Cf. under characteristic 3, below.
45 Of course, the exact meaning and normative weight of self-determination would
require a long discussion. It is true that this weight may be dubious because of,
among other things, historical contingencies (e.g. concerning who are a country’s
inhabitants and who are outsiders). Still, I assume that self-determination will nor-
mally have a certain normative weight (cf. also note 49 below) and that the case for
this can be made without making very outspoken liberal assumptions.
46 In what follows I will confine the discussion to wealth and technology (on the one
hand) and to institutional resources (on the other hand), but this short list remains
open to further elaboration.
47 For more on this, see Ch. 5.
48 In order to see that rich countries may well not be overwhelmed in ideal circum-
stances, it should also be noted that human rights realization stands out inasmuch as it
includes all important interests that can be socially protected (see Ch. 2). In other
words, there are not many – indeed, I’d say no – other causes for foreign assistance
that are on a par with human rights realization.
49 Nor does providing foreign assistance – even if a community would morally have to
do it and could not decide the matter as it wanted – plausibly get in the way of polit-
ical and cultural self-determination of a relevant group. Reasons of political and cul-
tural self-determination stress the importance of a political or cultural group being
able to chart its own political course and to shape its own culture. This is often
thought to be important for individuals to be able to choose and carry out their own
conceptions of a good life (see e.g. Kymlicka 2000, Ch. 8; but also cf. note 45 above).
But even if such self-determination is important (and must concern a much smaller
political community than the entire world), the point is that providing meaningful
foreign assistance doesn’t seem to jeopardize it.
50 In what follows, it will be generally presupposed that a society’s resources do not
only concern its wealth, but also how advanced its technologies are and its institu-
tional capacities (its ‘organizing-related’ resources for realizing human rights effectively –
and acceptably, e.g. with the required respect for people and with the required checks
and balances to ensure reliable protection). Which resources are relevant for setting
the baseline is, of course, very important, but the discussion in the text must remain
very brief.
51 See e.g. Pogge (2008), p. 211. The rich-country level is one where there are, in the
country concerned, ample resources left for non-human rights concerns.
52 The underlying methodology here might be called ‘reflective equilibrium’, although
to say this is not to say very much. Besides, part of my judgement is also based on the
idea that institutional factors are in a way less hard-and-fast than financial and
technological ones. However, I cannot pursue this point here.
Concerning non-ideal situations, inequalities of protection there will sometimes be
due to factors that, although they would not be present in ideal situations, cannot be
changed until t=t. It is then a moot point whether one should say that these inequal-
ities are permissible until t=t, or that they are impermissible, but unavoidable until
t=t. Nothing of substance may hinge on which of these two possibilities one chooses.
At the same time, one emphatically has to keep in mind that, often, inequalities
cannot be called permissible because of certain factors by the agents who can change
those factors. For example, certain states, business companies, strongmen, etc. commonly
62  Novel challenges to human rights
cannot take their own (mis)behaviour as a given – even if it is just that, a given, for
many third parties who cannot change it. Cf. Cohen (2000), Ch. 9; Frick (2016).
53 There are, of course, other important meanings of (un)equal protection than the one this
chapter has dealt with. First off, one could say that there is only equal protection if
people whose very important interests stand in much greater need of protection than
those of others receive at least some meaningful extra protection. For example, people
who are unable to walk need much more protection of their important interests concern-
ing mobility, among other things in the way of the environment not throwing up certain
kinds of obstacles and providing certain kinds of facilitation. This sense of equality of
protection is inspired by the capability approach (see Sen 1992, 1999; Nussbaum 2000;
Robeyns 2005, 2017; for human rights and disability, see e.g. Harnacke 2012 and
Anderson and Philips 2012); and I have specified here a rather minimal form of it – at
least some meaningful extra protection – so that it is extremely plausible that this much
will mostly have to be provided as a matter of human rights.
Second, equality of protection as understood in this chapter could also be expanded
to within-country cases. Within countries, very good reasons will be needed for
allowing inequalities of protection (in the present chapter’s sense) between two indi-
viduals or groups. In any case, the reasons given in the present chapter for allowing
such inequalities globally in certain cases do not apply within one country.
54 The allocation of the burden of proof – which typically has a very large influence on
the outcome of an argument – can easily become a trick. But in the context of the
present chapter, the example of the mother shows why it is justified to put it on those
who wish to deviate from equality of protection.
55 I have argued, of course, that human rights do not self-evidently, let alone conceptu-
ally, require equal protection.
56 As it does in e.g. Pogge (1992), Follesdal (2014).
5 The challenge of future people

If human rights are to remain plausible and relevant as an ideal of minimum

justice at a global scale, it is necessary that governments and people can be com-
mitted to them in a non-hypocritical way. But not only that; human rights must
also be able duly to include the interests of future people and the reliable protec-
tion of those interests. How human rights can do this constitutes what I call the
challenge of future people.
Some say that people who are not there yet cannot have anything, so they
also cannot have interests, let alone rights.1 However, we must accept in any
case that there will, in the future, very likely be people who have not been born
yet. They will be human beings and they will have important interests; and once
they have been born, their interests will matter a lot, just as those of other
humans do. This, at least, is what one will say if one is committed to the funda-
mental equality of all human beings. And one will be committed to this if one is
committed to human rights – or so I have argued in the previous chapter. Fur-
thermore, if one abides by the usual criteria for attributing human rights duties,
such as the capacity to solve a human rights problem or causal involvement in
its coming to exist, people now alive could well be duty bearers for protecting
the (future) important interests of future people.2
If so, this raises a number of important questions. For instance, with how
many future people should one reckon? And what assumptions should one make
about what the important interests of future people will be, and about where on
earth they should be able to live?3 Furthermore, there is also the problem, which
is central to this chapter and also particularly important in times of climate
change, as to when the future should get precedence and when the present. Not
that there is always a conflict, of course. Taking measures against climate
change, for example, will often also be favourable for current generations (and
sometimes even more so for the global poor), especially for the young among
them. But in other cases, there will be conflicts. For example, caring for future
people by mitigating climate change might require the curtailment of certain
freedoms for those presently alive and will, at the very least, require that they
voluntarily change their lifestyles.
In two cases, it will at any rate be clear how to set priorities in relation to human
rights, and the task of this chapter will be to begin developing a framework that is
64  Novel challenges to human rights
relevant for other, more difficult cases as well. The first clear case is one where
very important interests of very many future people are at stake and where there is
a respectable account – typically a scientific one – that this is so. One may think
of a scenario where severe climate change4 is likely to occur and where, according
to a respectable (scientific) account, this may lead to ­widespread food insecurity,
water shortages, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and flooding, and a
severe loss of biodiversity. At the same time, present people in this scenario only
have to give up trivialities (heating unneeded rooms in their houses, buying dispos-
able consumer items, etc.) to prevent these future horrors from happening. This
case may have some, but limited, real-life relevance: although often present people
may well have to give up more than trivialities in order to prevent dangerous
climate change, giving up trivialities could already help somewhat. Yet very impor-
tantly, this case does not in the end really concern prioritizing among human rights.
The second clear case is one where, on a respectable account, the protection
of very important interests of very many future people is at stake; but where the
only way to protect these interests is by compromising the protection of very
many people’s very important interests now. I think, for instance, of a case
where, in order to prevent serious climate change, very many people in the
present would have to be left to starve. It is vital to keep in mind that such
dilemmas are often spurious and that such tragic choices are luckily rare: there
are usually third ways available. But in a case where this is really the choice to
be made, it is – in my view – clear that one should go for the present – even if
the number of people in the present is, although large, possibly considerably
smaller than that in the future. The reason is mainly, as will be explained below,
that the threats to present people are imminent.
Other cases are less clear than these two, and this chapter’s aim, as said, is to
begin to develop a framework that can help us to deal with them. I will start by
specifying what claims can, on first consideration, qualify as human rights
claims, and subsequently develop principles as to which of these claims ought to
be honoured, all things considered. Accordingly, the chapter will take the fol-
lowing steps.5 First, I will give an account of the characteristics that claims will
need to have in order to count, on first consideration, as human rights claims. I
will defend that, in order to do so, claims will have to concern very important
interests, very important protections and there has to be a good (for example,
scientific) account that these interests are indeed threatened and can indeed be
protected (Section 5.1). Second, I briefly consider the priority of human rights as
a whole and spurious conflicts among human rights, and then develop and
defend a formal framework for setting priorities among human rights, that is,
among the claims that are human rights claims on first consideration. This
framework will include such factors as the number of people threatened, the
severity of the threats and how certain the threats and the efficacy of the protec-
tions are (Section 5.2). Third, Section 5.3 will, given the chapter’s particular
interest in setting priorities between the present and the future, more extensively
discuss uncertainties of various kinds.6 This section will also discuss what
assumptions should be made about the number of future people and the
 The challenge of future people  65
important interests that they will have. Assumptions about this are needed in
order to decide how to prioritize among human rights. Section 5.4 concludes.
There is not much literature on priority-setting among human rights.7 In fact,
lawyers and activists often say that there are no priorities.8 This, however, is
unlikely to be the case; and lawyers and activists do, indeed, generally speak of
‘balancing’ human rights, which may practically not be all that different – but I
will come back to this shortly – from what I mean by priority-setting.9 And one
should not take too simple a view of what priority-setting may involve. It may
not only concern one right (such as the right to a decent standard of living)
versus another (such as the right to security), but also certain protections offered
under one right versus other protections that could be offered under it, or under
another right. Or it may concern one group of recipients versus another – which
will, to be sure, often be constrained by demands for equality of protection
(among other things).
But are priority-setting and balancing so close after all? I do think that there
may be a great difference of view between, on the one hand, those who are
willing to think in terms of priority-setting and, on the other hand, those who say
that there are no priorities, although they may speak in terms of balancing. The
former group tends to strive for principled priority-setting (my term), under-
stood as an approach to priority-setting that seeks to develop general principles
that in the end aim to cover, as closely as possible in a deductive fashion,10 every
conceivable conflict among human rights. The latter group, by contrast, advo-
cates a case-by-case approach where every instance of conflict among human
rights is to be dealt with by looking at the particularities of the case at hand.
This, too, will in due course yield relatively general principles, which can also
be applied to new cases. But this, the defenders of the case-by-case approach
will say, will never even come close to a deductive enterprise, given the number,
variety and complexity of the considerations bearing on each particular case.
The defenders of a case-by-case approach may be right here, I would say; but
one may still try to develop an informative account consisting of relatively
general principles, and just see how far one gets.11 Whenever one fails, so be it,
yet there is no reason to think that relatively general principles and considera-
tions nowhere and never get one anywhere.12
Thus, this chapter will try to make the beginnings of a principled account of
priority-setting among human rights, with an eye especially to prioritizing
between the human rights claims of people presently alive and those of future
people (and with climate change as the leading example throughout). As with
other observations made in this book, I refrain from discussing whether this
beginning account of priority-setting should aspire to some prominent place in a
public practice of human rights.13

5.1 Which claims can qualify as human rights claims?

Not all claims can, even at first sight, plausibly qualify as matters of human
rights – for example, only those can (I will argue) which concern important
66  Novel challenges to human rights
interests and important protections of those interests. This section will, thus, as
the first step of the priority-setting exercise, discuss a number of conditions – I
will call them entrance conditions – that claims have to meet in order to qualify
as matters of human rights at all. Thereafter, the next section will, as a second
step, propose a beginning framework for how priorities among the qualifying
claims should be set. Throughout, the place of the claims of future people will
receive particular attention.
The claims with which this section deals typically state that reliable protec-
tion P of interest A should be provided. For example, food provision for people
who are now threatened by famine in Yemen should receive protection P. This
means that we are talking at a much more concrete level than that at which many
human rights declarations, etc. (such as the UDHR) articulate their claims.
There, usually only some very general idea of the protections to be provided is
articulated.14 To be sure, such a more abstract level, too, is needed if human
rights are to provide an ideal of minimum global justice – which is the main role
that has been envisaged for them above – because it is at this abstract level that
one can frequently most plausibly say of a set of human rights that they are uni-
versally valid while, importantly, still having content.15 But when we are thinking
about priority-setting, we need a more concrete level where, among other things,
the protections that qualify as matters of human rights have to come into view
much more precisely. So, one must conceive of human rights as being on two
different levels at least: a more abstract level needed for universal validity and a
more concrete level needed for priority-setting.16
Which conditions, then, do claims have to meet to qualify as matters of
human rights at all (‘entrance conditions’ in my terminology)? Two main
entrance conditions – which were already briefly mentioned – plausibly are that
the claims to protection should concern very important interests17 and also very
important protections against very important threats. Thus, if we imagine start-
ing with all claims saying that certain interests should be protected, a whole lot
of these fall away immediately: they could never be matters of human rights
because they are not concerned with matters of sufficient importance. Protecting
the ability of people to, say, have a fashionable wardrobe is not sufficiently
important; and a protection against floods by building a dyke that immediately
gives way is not sufficiently helpful.
Here are two further plausible entrance conditions: it should not be far-
fetched or mere guesswork – call this a non-contrivance entrance condition –
that, on the one hand, there are indeed very important threats to very important
interests and that, on the other hand, the proposed protections are effective.
Rather, there should be a good account that these two things are indeed the case.
One cannot even begin to consider a certain protection as possibly a matter of
human rights if the existence of the relevant threats or the efficacy of the protec-
tions in question were far-fetched or mere guesswork. When are they not? One
possibility is that there is a good scientific underpinning available that serious
threats, etc. exist.18 For some cases, this may be made more precise by saying
that one should ‘understand the mechanism’ of the threat and have an idea as to
 The challenge of future people  67
when ‘the conditions that lead the mechanism to function’19 begin to be fulfilled –
and similarly for the envisaged protection. In other cases, a different specifica-
tion may be appropriate. In yet other cases, one might not make any reference to
science, but rather hold (say) that things are a matter of judgement – an example
of this being a case of a dictator who threatens to kill very many people, as
Muammar Gaddafi did when he threatened the inhabitants of Benghazi in 2011.
Whether the threat was real, rather than merely far-fetched, could in this case
only be determined through thorough knowledge of the relevant socio-political
context and its historical backgrounds. To be sure, the condition that a threat and
the effectiveness of a protection must not be far-fetched or mere guesswork is
vague as it stands. But it is not easy to say more in general terms. For all its
vagueness, this condition could still be difficult to meet when we are dealing
with threats and protections that concern future people – although not only then.
This, however, is no reason to omit the condition. For, if it were omitted, too
many unsubstantiated things (to make the idea vivid: even things featuring
aliens…?) could qualify as a matter of human rights.

5.2 How to prioritize among human rights

claims – including between the present and the future
Suppose it has become clear which claims can, because they meet the relevant
entrance conditions, qualify as human rights claims at first sight. One could then
also say that they ‘initially qualify’ (or are ‘initial’ human rights claims), for
there remains a question of how to set priorities among these claims. Only after
settling this will it be clear which claims to protection ought all-things-considered
to be granted as a matter of human rights. This is the way human rights are
usually spoken of: if you have a human right that, for example, your freedom of
expression is protected in certain ways against threats by third parties, it is normally
presupposed that your and other people’s other claims have already been taken
into account. They cannot justifiably get in the way of the protections of your
freedom of expression. In other words, your claim to these protections is not
understood as being pro tanto, but as being all-things-considered.
The question of how to set priorities among human rights (that is to say,
among initial human rights claims) is important, for human rights claims are
usually taken to be weighty, in the sense that it is a grave moral fault not to fulfil
the duties associated with them; and also in the sense that human rights claims
often ought to get precedence over non-human rights claims when there is a
conflict.20 But their weightiness would be hard to sustain if there were no good
account of how to resolve conflicts among human rights. How could human
rights be weighty if we have no idea of whether, where there is a conflict, to give
priority to protecting the food provision of individuals A1-An in way X or to
protecting the freedom of speech of individuals B1-Bn in way Y?21 (There
should also, for that matter, be a good account of what priority human rights
should have vis-à-vis other claims, for example how many financial or technolo-
gical resources they may or should consume; more about this in a moment.) One
68  Novel challenges to human rights
could of course say that a coin ought to be tossed or that we can do both with
equal justification; but this is one way of setting priorities. The point is that
some answer has to be given and that one should have good arguments for it. If
protecting very important interests matters a lot, one cannot simply shrug one’s
shoulders in cases of conflict and have nothing to say.
There are, broadly, two kinds of conflicts between initial human rights
claims: conflicts that are due to lack of resources and conflicts that are not. The
former kind already exists simply because resources (financial, technological,
etc.) are not unlimited, but it becomes more frequent because human rights may
not plausibly consume all or nearly all resources. To be sure, it is plausible that
human rights may and should consume a sizeable part of financial and technolo-
gical resources given that these rights – in this book’s conception – deal with all
very important interests for which it is at all possible to provide social protec-
tion.22 But they must not nearly consume all resources, for there is more to life
than protecting very important interests, however weighty these may be. As for
conflicts of the latter kind, that is, conflicts which are not due to limited
resources, one may for example think of some possible conflict between protect-
ing security and protecting privacy, assuming – as is plausible – that at least
certain protections of privacy, too, would qualify as, on first consideration, a
matter of human rights (such as important protections against having one’s
house randomly searched and one’s letters opened at will). Such a conflict
would at least in part remain no matter how many resources a society could
spend on protecting human rights.
Before proposing a beginning framework for priority-setting among human
rights, it should be noted that alleged conflicts between initial human rights
claims can, for various reasons, be spurious. Where this is so, it is obviously
wrong to pit the two claims against one another; one should instead deny that
there is a conflict. In addition, it is generally wrong to say that there is a choice
between ‘providing protection X’ or ‘providing protection Y’. This is the wrong
way to think about priority-setting among human rights; rather, we should con-
sider all initial human rights claims together and then consider them in light of
the framework to be proposed, which asks – as will become clear – a number of
questions, such as: Just how important are the interests and protections con-
cerned? How many people are involved? And how vulnerable are these people?
Specifically, there are several ways in which a purported conflict between
human rights claims can be spurious. I mention three, without any pretension of
completeness. First, one of the claims could, on reflection, turn out to be not
even initially a claim of human rights. For example, with one of the claims, a
necessary entrance condition could on further consideration turn out not to be
met: the interest in question might, say, not really be very important, as has
rightly or wrongly often been said of having ‘periodic holidays with pay’.23
Second, it could be that human rights as a whole should receive more resources
and that, once they do, two conflicting claims ought clearly both to be accom-
modated.24 Or, third, it might be that two initial human rights claims should
clearly both be granted all-things-considered, at the expense of other initial
 The challenge of future people  69
human rights claims. For example, it may be that food provision for certain
people should be protected in way X and that freedom from torture for some
other people should be protected in way Y.
Having said this, however, it remains the case that not all conflicts between
human rights claims will be spurious. How, then, to set priorities when there is a
genuine conflict? A beginning framework will now be outlined for such cases.
My aim will not be to develop a full account of general principles for covering
all possible cases of conflict among human rights, but only to propose relatively
formal considerations. The exposition that follows will have a negative and a
positive part, although the distinction between the two is not always sharp (some
points could be formulated both negatively and positively). Negatively, it will be
considered what kinds of priority-setting have to remain off limits. Positively,
certain formal principles will be proposed for setting priorities among human
rights. After this, I will specifically discuss some aspects that are especially rel-
evant for priority-setting between claims of present and future people: how to
deal with uncertainties when setting priorities, and what assumptions to make
about the number of future people and about what interests they will have
(Section 5.3).

A) Ways to set priorities that should remain off limits

In what ways should priorities among human rights not be set? I will formulate
some (relatively general) ideas about this. Their background goes in two almost
opposed directions: that human rights are, on the one hand, about providing reli-
able protections, and exhibit a resistance to always doing what provides the best
outcome overall. Yet, on the other hand, the protection that human rights are
about does leave a place for arguably relatively mundane matters such as quant-
itative considerations.25 To elaborate somewhat: on the one hand, human rights
are not just about providing very important protections of very important inter-
ests, but about providing reliable protections. One should be able to count on
having the interests protected and it should not be possible that the protection of
an interest is taken away at will by some party or overnight. This implies, first,
the necessity of certain kinds of safeguards – formal or informal institutionalization,
with appropriate checks and balances and the like – and articulating such safe-
guards is, when we are talking at a concrete level, part of what it is to articulate
a right.26 Second, to be able to count on protection, it must also be the case that a
‘utilitarianism of rights’27 is avoided, where my protection X of a very important
interest of mine is taken away whenever more protection of interests overall can
be provided by doing so.28 On the other hand, I will assume that the expectation
that very many people will benefit from some protection rather than another –
for instance, from some protection of secure food provision rather than (say)
some protection of health through certain health-care provisions – can some-
times be a good reason to provide one protection rather than another. And,
somewhat similarly, the efficacy of a certain protection can be a good reason to
provide this protection rather than another protection that is less efficacious.
70  Novel challenges to human rights
Thus, I will not conceive of priority-setting among human rights as a strictly
deontological exercise in the sense of one which says that one ought (not) to do
certain things regardless of, for example, the numbers of people involved or the
effectiveness of the protections. Rather, I will adopt a more ‘flexible’ approach,
which also takes quantitative considerations and effectiveness, and also
uncertainties, etc., into account. The approach that policymakers, etc. will actu-
ally employ will do this anyway (which does not, of course, in itself mean that
doing so is justified); and it will probably do so all the more if the claims of
future people, with all their attendant uncertainties, need to get a place in human
rights. One will have to take quantitative, etc. considerations into account also if
one professes to take a strictly deontological approach, and consequently pro-
fessing to take such an approach could evoke the charge of hypocrisy once more
(hypocrisy in the sense of one’s not actually acting on one’s moral ideals; cf.
Chapter 4 above).
Still, certain ways of setting priorities among human rights should remain off
limits. In this regard, I will now argue for three points.29 First, all individuals
must receive consideration and, second, so must all important interests. Third,
active violation of human rights is always to be avoided.30
Let me discuss the first and the second point together: that one must not
neglect certain individuals31 to the favour of (even all) others;32 and that one
must not neglect certain interests to the favour of (even all) others. What exactly
these points entail will be different in different cases. Generally put, they are dis-
tributive concerns, which require the relevant duty bearers always to consider
whether a defensible balance between different beneficiaries and different inter-
ests has been struck. If this much is no longer the case, one gets a situation
where some may lose everything or where some interests may lose out entirely.
But why is this a problem for human rights, as long as it makes for the most
protection of interests overall? I see two main reasons. The first and foremost
reason is this: can one really rightly regard certain interests as very weighty and –
arguably more importantly – can one really regard the interests of all individuals
as very weighty if one is prepared to let some lose out completely? A consequen-
tialist philosopher might say that one can: one may, indeed should, let certain
individuals or interests lose out completely if it makes for the most protection of
interests overall. However, the right thing to do, I would say, is to balance (1) a
concern for a lot of protection overall with (2) a concern for not letting certain
individuals and interests lose out entirely. The former concern was taken care of
by human rights’ sensitivity to, among other things, quantitative considerations
and uncertainties; and to insist on the overall maximization of protection of
interests is to refuse any balance with the latter concern.33
The second reason why it is a problem to abandon the requirement of striking
a defensible balance is – following up on what was said above – whether there
is a way to conceive of reliable protection if there is no requirement of striking
a defensible balance between different beneficiaries and also interests. For a
protection to be reliable, it must at least not be liable to overnight change; it
must not be possible for some party to change it at will; and it must stay away
 The challenge of future people  71
from a utilitarianism of rights, where (say) a protection that I have has to be
taken away whenever by doing so a similar protection can be provided for three
others. Abandoning the requirement of striking a defensible balance between
beneficiaries, and also between interests, might well get one much closer to a
utilitarianism of rights as well as – if the abandonment got an institutional
­translation – to overnight changes of protection. To be sure, that one might well
get much closer is not a logical necessity, but an empirical possibility;34 but
even as such it is worrisome enough.
However, while it will be rather evident why no individuals may lose out
altogether, why is this also the case for interests?35 The background idea is that
the interests involved – all of them very important – are not interchangeable. If
one calls an interest non-interchangeable, one will usually do so for more intrin-
sic, as well as for certain more instrumental, reasons (which will vary from case
to case);36 for both kinds of reasons, one cannot do without the interest being
attended to.37 For example, an intrinsic reason for valuing freedom of expression
has to do with what happens to people if they can no longer express their
thoughts and opinions and discuss them with others. Moreover, if freedom of
expression is absent (or not guaranteed), they often cannot even express their
thoughts to themselves (or it is not guaranteed that they can), in cases where
doing so requires writing these thoughts down, say, or speaking them out loud.
This would have grave consequences for, among other things, these people’s
opportunities to be practically rational and to develop their cognitive capacities
to some minimum extent. Instrumentally, reliably protecting the interest in
freedom of expression is important for reliably protecting many other important
interests.38 For example, freedom of expression allows people to draw attention
to how the protection of other important interests fares, and this often helps with
improving that protection.
Finally, there is a third point as to how interests may and may not be pro-
tected when we are talking about human rights – in addition to the points that it
is unacceptable entirely to disregard, first, any individual and, second, any
interest. This third point is that active disrespect for rights, by any agent, should
normally be ruled out; to deny this would have very undesirable implications.
That such disrespect should be ruled out is obvious if we think of political
regimes, such as many dictatorships, that murder or starve a country’s people.
However, disregarding these extreme examples, someone might still object that
putting active disrespect off limits in a sense privileges the status quo. For it
makes certain ways impermissible in which this status quo may be changed in
order to protect certain interests that are currently unprotected. Active disrespect
is not generally meant here in the sense of taking away, perhaps typically by
reallocating, a certain protection of an interest from someone – although there,
too, very good reasons are needed indeed – but in the sense of actively (and
considerably) setting back an interest: torturing, starving, etc. are common albeit
extreme examples. However, such active disrespect should indeed, even if the
stakes are improving a very bad or unjust status quo, be off limits – this is a
bullet I would bite. The paradigmatic example perhaps remains this: I may not
72  Novel challenges to human rights
come and take your organs from you, even if this is the only way to save five
others. It is generally the same for actively setting back other very important
interests of yours.39 It is more difficult where the (allegedly) active violation is
due to a combination of different agents, as is often the case in our complex,
globalized world (call this ‘joint violation’ or ‘joint disrespect’). I think that,
here, the appropriate thing to say would typically be that, when our focus is one
particular agent involved in joint disrespect, their actions lie somewhere
between actively violating human rights and failing to further realize them.40 It is
not so clear that, like actively setting back someone’s important interests, con-
tributing to such ‘joint disrespect’, however objectionable it often is, should
always, by way of an absolute constraint, be off limits for an agent; it will
depend on the details of the case.41 At least sometimes, it would be better to
focus, not so much on avoiding implication in joint disrespect, but on how to
change structural settings.42 What is crystal clear, meanwhile, is that an agent
cannot treat joint disrespect simply as she does failures of assistance: she must
not relate to cases of joint disrespect in which she is implicated as if she were
merely an outsider, a passive onlooker, and, more generally, she must not let
herself off the hook easily. Yet further discussion of such cases is beyond the
present scope. The point here is merely that human rights must not be actively
set back,43 save perhaps in very extraordinary circumstances.44
This concludes my brief discussion of three ways in which priorities among
human rights must not be set – there must be no neglect of any beneficiaries of
human rights, of any very important interests and active violation of human
rights must not occur in any case. (As said before, some of these points may be
put positively instead of negatively. But that does not matter for their content
and they still read like constraints.) All three points seem important with regard
to future people and their interests. Future people as beneficiaries should not be
disregarded, nor should their interests (which may also be different from the
interests of people presently alive; cf. Section 5.3 below), and certainly not act-
ively so – as may, arguably, be nearly the case when environmental damage is
quite directly inflicted by some agent, as where rainforests are destroyed or river
deltas polluted. And cases of failing to halt climate change, while typically a
matter of joint disrespect and as such serious enough, may sometimes be, rather,
very nearly direct, for example when a powerful agent starts a strong lobby to
prevent a meaningful mitigation regime.

B) Principles for setting priorities among human rights

I now turn to the beginnings of a positive account of how priorities among initial
human rights claims should be set. This will consist of relatively formal prin-
ciples that can apply to many conflicts between human rights considerations,
often regardless of whether the conflicts are due to scarcity of resources or not.
Such principles are not so substantively specific as to say, for example, that in the
case of a conflict between providing protection P of freedom of religion and protec-
tion Q of non-discrimination, such and such is what should be done – including,
 The challenge of future people  73
possibly, a specification of the agent who should do it. Within the scope of this
chapter, it would be much too ambitious to develop such substantive and spe-
cific principles, and I will confine myself to more formal considerations.45 First
of all, (i) several factors will be outlined which should be considered when
setting priorities among human rights; then (ii) I will discuss some further
formal principles; and finally, (iii) some formal considerations to do with equal-
ity of protection will be discussed. This section will end with a brief discussion
of how these considerations apply to future people and to setting priorities
between the present and the future when there is a conflict. Section 5.3 will then
further go into how to deal with uncertainties in the priority-setting-exercise,
which is particularly important for duly including future people. And Section 5.3
will also ask what assumptions should be made about the number and interests
of future people.
But let us now first discuss the positive account of how to set priorities
among human rights, which consists of three parts.
(i) The following factors (a)–(g) should be taken into account when setting pri-
orities among initial human rights claims (claims which all meet suitable
entrance conditions):

(a) how important the interest is that stands to be reliably protected;

(b) how serious the threat to that interest is;
(c) how much the envisaged protection contributes to averting the threat;
(d) how (un)certain the threat is and the efficacy of the protection;
(e) how many people stand to be protected;
(f) what the cost is of providing the protections, in such terms as the wealth of
a society and its technological resources; and
(g) whether there are suitable duty bearers available.

Just to focus thoughts: one could think of a conflict between, on the one hand,
providing certain protections of the freedom of expression for certain people
(possibly presently alive) and, on the other hand, providing certain protections
of a decent standard of living for certain others (possibly future people), and one
could consider factors (a)–(g) to see whether a clear picture emerges. It is
important, though, that such a conflict is stylized and that one should consider
all the possible protections that meet the appropriate entrance conditions
together. An isolated comparison of two conflicting claims by looking at factors
(a)–(g) will often have to leave open the possibility that both ought to be honoured –
except where this is by definition impossible – at the expense of other initial
claims, as well as the possibility that neither of the claims ought to be honoured,
to the benefit of other initial claims.
To clarify further, I do not think of considerations (a)–(g) as exhaustive, nor
do I think it is plausible that they can neatly be combined into what Samuel
Scheffler calls a ‘mechanical decision procedure’,46 where, given inputs on
(a)–(g), the right decision will follow without any further need for judgment or
sensitivity to context. Rather, (a)–(g) are no more and no less than factors that
74  Novel challenges to human rights
need to be considered in determining how priorities should, in a given spatio­
temporal context, be set among protections that meet suitable entrance con-
ditions. Factors (a), (b), (c) and (d) follow straightforwardly from a focus on
providing very important protections of very important interests. Concerning
factor (a), the case for the importance of an interest can be made by pointing to
its intrinsic and instrumental importance, as was discussed above in the example
of having freedom of expression. The seriousness of the threat and usefulness of
the protection – factors (b) and (c) – may be clear enough as they stand. Factor
(d), how to deal with uncertainties, will be discussed in Section 5.3 below. With
factor (e), it should be remembered that, on the one hand, no individuals and
interests may be entirely neglected, but that, on the other hand, the number of
people involved in a protection remains relevant as well. Some defensible
balance has to be struck between, on the one hand, doing justice to everyone and
to every very important interest and, on the other hand, doing justice to many. It
may be hard to say more than this without considering particular cases. As for
factor (f), this – although it is already largely implicit in the other factors – bears
explicating inasmuch as there are many protections that meet suitable entrance
conditions. Consequently, the ‘opportunity costs’ of providing certain protec-
tions need to be taken into account. And factor (g) needs to be included if (as
has been argued in Section 2.2) certain conditions must be fulfilled in order for
some agent to be rightly regarded as a duty bearer for providing protections. For
example, they must in any case have the capacity to provide protections and it
must not be grossly unfair to ask them to do so.
Before I add some further principles for priority-setting among human rights,
let me first make some remarks that begin to show the above framework at
work. Suppose that a choice must be made between providing a particular pro-
tection of very many people’s food supply and the provision of some quite
important form or element of education (for example, one working towards ele-
mentary literacy) for even many more people. I assume that this is a choice that
must be made rather than – as it will often be in practice – a false dilemma.
Also, as said earlier, a priority-setting exercise based on the above framework
needs to consider all initial human rights claims together rather than make iso-
lated comparisons. Still, let us go with the example. Food provision, it may be
thought, is more important than education,47 so, unless perhaps the number of
people whose education is threatened is very much larger, it ought to get preced-
ence. But, then again, this will surely also depend on how large the threat to it is
and to what extent that threat can be staved off. If there is a great difference in
favour of the education here, it may have to get priority after all, especially if it
is very much less costly to provide the education or if a suitable duty bearer is
much more easily found, for instance one who clearly has the capacity to
provide the protection of the interest (education) and of whom it does not seem
grossly unfair to ask it.
This example also goes to show that one will always have to know a lot of
details about the case at hand. This is beyond the present scope; but let us look
at a somewhat different example, where the interests involved are arguably not
 The challenge of future people  75
of clearly different importance: say the freedom of expression, to express and
share one’s views, versus the freedom of work in the sense of having the liberty,
within certain limits, to engage in and withdraw from economic activity.48 In this
example, one will need to look more closely into the intrinsic and instrumental
importance of these interests; and beyond that – again sticking with the stylized
example of an isolated case where there is really a conflict – many considera-
tions will follow similarly as in the previous case. One will consider the size of
the threat and the extent to which it can be staved off, as well as the cost of pro-
viding the respective protections and the availability of suitable duty bearers.
Especially where different considerations pull in different directions, the details
of the case will matter a lot. In a case where one protection relates to future
people whereas the other one concerns people presently alive, things will be
much the same again – although clarity will be required, in particular, about the
relevant assumptions to be made about future people and about uncertainties
concerning the protection of their important interests (even though there are of
course also uncertainties relating to people presently alive).
Finally, and more generally, I have said that thinking in terms of isolated
pairs of conflicting claims is misleading. It is, therefore, better to consider
several alternative configurations of protections provided as a matter of human
rights, and test these against both the negative constraints and the positive
framework that were proposed above. And these configurations should also be
tested against some further formal principles, which will now be discussed.
(ii) These formal principles are as follows (I will use positive formulations).
First, following up on the idea that each person is owed consideration, one may
formulate a principle to the effect that there should be particularly careful atten-
tion for exceptionally vulnerable right-holders, for example the physically or
mentally disabled or the world’s poor, and that they are owed a careful explana-
tion if their claims lose out.49 Second, also following up on the idea that no
person – or interest – may lose out entirely, a principle concerning imminence
may be formulated:50 failure to protect against imminent serious threats to
important interests should receive especially careful justification, all the more so
if the failure is larger in the sense that one can do more to protect the interests,
or in the sense that the interests are exceedingly important, etc. The rationale
behind such a principle is that, with imminent threats, protecting the interests
concerned may be a case of now or never.51 As examples, one may think of
imminent threats to receiving a fair trial, to having security or a decent standard
of living. A third formal principle has to do with cases of priority-setting where
several considerations point in the same direction: if some protection concerns
1) an extraordinarily important interest (for example, life), 2) many people and
3) is efficacious against serious threats, then frequently that protection should
receive precedence vis-à-vis protections that score significantly less on all these
dimensions. And this will be so more often yet, if even more of the factors
(a)–(g) mentioned above point in the same direction. It may be against this back-
ground, I surmise, that activists and lawyers who generally deny that there are
priorities among human rights, still recognize certain rights as absolute, that is,
76  Novel challenges to human rights
as not allowing of any exceptions – the right not to be subjected to genocide
would be an example. In such important cases, the answer to the question of
how to set priorities among human rights involves so many considerations that
point in the same direction that things will not be controversial.52
(iii) Finally, as a third part of the positive account of priority-setting among
human rights, certain principles to do with equality of protection will also have
to be observed. Some negative constraints discussed above – that every indi-
vidual and every very important interest should receive attention – already
articulate very minimal senses of equality of protection. By contrast, Chapter 4
has specifically discussed one more ambitious form of equality of protection:
that persons receive the same protection of a very important interest whenever
their need for protection is the same. I have argued that deviations from this
form of equal protection are, even in an ideal world, sometimes justified; but
that good reasons are indeed needed. The reasons that I have explored have to
do with the circumstance that a world order made up of largely sovereign states
will in many ways likely be desirable; and then, differences in the protection of
very important interests will result and it will be limited what external assistance
can do about them.
Assuming, in light of what was said in line with this, that it will often be
states that carry out the setting of priorities among human rights – although the
framework outlined above should be thought of more broadly and generally –
we can note that the reasons just mentioned for sometimes allowing global
inequalities of protection do not apply within one country. So, one needs
different reasons if one is to maintain that two people for whom a very important
interest is in equal need of protection may still receive protection that is not the
same. Such reasons, I have suggested, will usually be hard to come by. If so,
within a country, equality of protection – in the sense of two persons receiving
the same protection when their need for protection is the same – will generally
be a constraint on how priorities among human rights may permissibly be set.
Furthermore, in Chapter 4 it has also been defended that those right-holders
whose interests are especially vulnerable should at least receive some meaning-
ful extra protection.53 This, too, will constrain how priorities among human
rights may permissibly be set.

5.3 Priority-setting among human rights:

uncertainties, and assumptions, concerning future people
Let us now discuss two aspects of priority-setting among human rights that
require special attention when one is considering future people. The first aspect
concerns the uncertainties associated with the threats to, and protections of,
future people’s interests – notably, what exactly these threats will look like and
whether certain protections will be efficacious. To be sure, such uncertainties
can also be present with regard to people who are alive now, but with future
people they are particularly conspicuous. A second aspect that needs particular
discussion is what assumptions should be made about future people – about how
 The challenge of future people  77
many they will be and about what their interests will be. I will consider these
two aspects in turn.

Uncertainties
The cases of uncertainty that are of special interest here, and for which it is a
particularly difficult question how to take them into account when setting prior-
ities among human rights, concern uncertainty in the technical sense, meaning
that no probabilities of a given outcome are approximately known – but that
there is good evidence (it is not contrived) that some particular outcome could
occur if a certain course of action is followed; that outcome is, so to speak, ‘on
the menu’ of outcomes.54 In other words, a suitable entrance condition is ful-
filled, which I have called a ‘non-contrivance’ entrance condition. Cases of
uncertainty, so understood, are to be distinguished from cases of risk, where
approximate probabilities of outcomes are known, and also from cases of igno-
rance, where it is not even clear, on good evidence, what the outcomes of a
given course of action may be – what the ‘menu of outcomes’ is. In cases of risk,
one should generally draw the probabilities into the priority-setting exercise –
which will, to be sure, be a non-utilitarian and non-mechanical exercise, but
even so the known probabilities should clearly be part of what is on the table.55
Cases of ignorance (‘if course of action A is performed, no idea what might
happen in regard R …’) are hard to deal with and it seems that in any case they
will not figure among initial human rights considerations. For they will not meet
the entrance condition that a good scientific account, or something similar, must be
available about the threats and about the efficacy of the protections if they are to
merit consideration. In what follows, I will put cases of ignorance to one side, and
for the most part cases of risk as well. The focus will be on cases of uncertainty,
which one encounters particularly often when dealing with climate change.
My ambitions are limited: to criticize one prominent approach and propose
what I believe to be a better alternative. The approach to be criticized is the one
that leading climate ethicists Stephen Gardiner and Henry Shue have defended. It
is sometimes called a precautionary approach, but I take it that hardly anything
depends on this label. It essentially says that, when certain conditions are met, the
uncertainties associated with a threat (and with the efficacy of a protection) should
be disregarded entirely. This approach is, it will be argued, hardly ever helpful in
setting priorities among human rights.56 I will defend an alternative approach of
which it is a part to visualize uncertainties (in a sense to be explained).
Let me first explain the way in which Stephen Gardiner and Henry Shue deal
with uncertainties – which is, although different in some details, similar in many
respects.57 I will paraphrase the main points. Both Gardiner and Shue are con-
cerned with outcomes that are uncertain in the above sense58 – no probabilities
are even approximately known – and which we would want very much to avoid,
such as severe climate change with all its possible adverse effects in the way of
extreme weather events, problems of water and food provision, reduced bio­
diversity, etc. Both authors add an entrance condition (as I have called it) that
78  Novel challenges to human rights
the outcome in question should not be contrived (my words again). More par-
ticularly, Gardiner holds – but he does not elaborate on this very much – that
there should be a respectable scientific account about the outcome in question.59
Shue thinks explicitly of climate change when he says that ‘(a) we understand
the mechanism by which the [massive losses] are likely to occur and (b) we have
begun to create the conditions that lead the mechanism to function’.60
Gardiner says that, if two conditions are fulfilled (in addition to the entrance
condition just formulated), we should avoid acting in such a way that a par-
ticular (worst) outcome becomes possible. These conditions are, first, that we
care greatly about avoiding that outcome; and second, that we care relatively
less about what we lose by avoiding that outcome.61 Shue mentions very similar
conditions with regard to climate change:62 we ought to avoid ‘massive losses’63
if, in addition to an appropriate ‘non-contrivance entrance condition’ (my
expression) being met, what we have to give up in order to avoid those losses is
relatively less important (the cost is ‘not excessive’64). Then, Shue argues, we
ought to act so as to avoid these losses even if they are uncertain.
I have rendered one of Gardiner’s and also Shue’s conditions as saying that
we care relatively less about what we give up compared to what we gain.65 In
fact, what they say is more ambiguous than this and, although they do not say so
explicitly, we could either go with the relative interpretation just given, or with a
more absolute interpretation saying that we do not care that much at all about
what we give up.66
And this is where my criticism of Gardiner’s and Shue’s accounts sets in: it is
very plausible that ‘massive losses’ or very bad outcomes should be avoided if
the cost of doing so is only small (or perhaps moderate), where obviously what
concretely is ‘small’ (or moderate) requires further interpretation and discussion.
Suppose, by contrast, that cost is understood in a relative way: we care less67
about what we give up than about what we avoid by doing so (the very bad
outcome or the massive losses). Then, I submit, it is at least not evident that we
should always do the giving up when (1) there is indeed a very bad outcome or
massive loss at stake and when (2) a plausible non-contrivance entrance con-
dition is met. To accept that we should always avoid the very bad outcome or
massive loss under these conditions would, it is true, not be all-out consequen-
tialism in the sense of always being required to realize the best overall outcome.
But it would be very close to it: basically, always realize the best outcome to the
extent that this is about the avoidance of massive losses, which might be called a
particular form of negative consequentialism. It is hardly self-evident that one
should adopt this position, and many would resist it. I will come back to this.
Let us now provisionally read Gardiner and Shue in an absolute way: they
speak to cases where we care only little/moderately about what we give up; and
they say that, in such cases, very bad outcomes/massive losses ought to be avoided
in any case, also if they are uncertain, as long as they meet a suitable non-­
contrivance entrance condition. This seems plausible to me. But the trouble is
that, on this reading, Gardiner’s and Shue’s accounts have a much too narrow
scope of application: when setting priorities among human rights, we are always
 The challenge of future people  79
dealing with very important protections of very important interests, and we are
thinking about which of those to provide and not to provide. If so, there will
almost always be great (opportunity) costs involved in avoiding massive losses/
very bad outcomes.68
It may be that one should avoid them nonetheless, but that needs argument.69
Also, and to follow up on the beginning criticism of the relative reading of
Gardiner’s and Shue’s accounts, it is doubtful whether the potential duty bearers
would still have to take action (perhaps just because of their ability to do so),
even if the costs to themselves are (very) great – as such a relative reading
would suggest. That would be a very demanding morality. Such a morality may
be more plausible in cases where the duty is not merely based on capacity, but
on being involved in a problem in a way that is considerably causal; but even
this much is hardly self-evident.70
Furthermore, what is even less self-evident, and what I actually believe to be
incorrect, is that one could rightly be asked to bear (very) great costs for the sake
of preventing even greater costs, while at the same time the uncertainties con-
cerning these greater costs/massive losses could justifiably be left out of the
picture – as long as a plausible non-contrivance entrance condition is met. I con-
centrate now on a relative reading of Gardiner’s and Shue’s accounts, where
people presently alive could (in theory but also in practice71) be asked to bear
costs/losses that are (reasonably) certain, and which may be only moderately (or
perhaps, in some cases, even slightly) less bad/massive than the uncertain outcomes/
losses for whose sake they are borne. In such cases, there is so much at stake for
present people that – I submit – one may not only take the uncertainties into
account in the priority-setting exercise, but one should do so.
Yet how should they be taken into account? To recall, uncertainties, as under-
stood here, are distinguished from risks in that approximately precise probabili-
ties are not known; and by approximately precise probabilities, I mean that the
probability range is quite narrow.72 Furthermore, I assume we are dealing with
uncertainties of which there is a respectable scientific account (or alternatively
where, for example, as Shue says, we understand the mechanism and whether
the conditions are fulfilled for setting it in motion). With this in the background,
how should uncertainties regarding, in particular, future people be taken into
account when setting priorities among human rights, especially when deciding
whether to give priority to those presently alive or to future people in cases of
conflict? The cases of which I am thinking involve uncertainties concerning
threats: Will the earth warm up with a certain number of degrees? Will a certain
amount of warming lead to problem P for food provision, etc.? And there may
also be uncertainties concerning protections, for example: Will doing X limit
global warming to maximally 1.5 degrees Celsius? I propose that, in such cases,
one should generally, on the one hand, avoid thinking too ‘lowly’ of the uncer-
tain outcomes. For, even though they are uncertain, they meet a suitable non-
contrivance entrance condition. That global warming by a certain number of
degrees, and certain consequent problems of food provision, extreme weather
events, etc., are uncertain if we pursue course of action A, only means that we
80  Novel challenges to human rights
cannot attach remotely precise probabilities to these occurrences. But they are
‘on the menu’ if we pursue course of action A. Similarly for the realization of a
protection such as limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (or avoiding
certain problems with food provision), if we pursue course of action B: a protec-
tion whose realization is uncertain is still ‘on the menu’. On the other hand,
uncertain outcomes of the kind just mentioned should not be thought of too
‘highly’ either; they should not simply be put on a par with adverse effects or
protections that are certain.
However, is it possible to put matters positively and say what should be done
rather than what should not be done? As indicated above, I believe that the way to
go is to strive for a detailed picture of all sides of the ‘equation’:73 the importance
of the interests in play, the number of people concerned, the severity of the threats,
the efficacy of the protections, etc. Whether there are uncertainties (concerning
threats or the efficacy of protections) is one part of this. This is the general answer;
I now add some detailed remarks about the uncertainties specifically.
About uncertain threats (etc.) we can say that, while (obviously) they are not
certain, there is a chance of their realization that is, depending on the cases at
hand, non-miniscule, or decent, or reasonable, or small but non-negligible, etc. –
this is how their being non-contrived/‘on the menu’ may be put differently. In
light of this, my (cautious) suggestion is that, in deciding how to deal with
uncertainties when setting priorities among human rights, it would help to try to
visualize them by – paradoxically – quantifying them, while always looking
carefully at what is adequate for the cases at hand. Let me explain by taking an
example that concerns climate change. Suppose that someone sketches five
scenarios (sets of outcomes) that may occur when a particular amount of green-
house gases is emitted. The assumptions that these scenarios are based on all
might be correct and not far-fetched; yet, if a knowledgeable scientist is pressed,
she cannot name – even very roughly – the probabilities of these scenarios being
realized (if she could, we would have a case of risk). This is, then, a case where
one could say that the chances of these outcomes, if that particular amount of
greenhouse gases is indeed emitted, are not negligible, but where any remotely
precise probabilities cannot be assigned to that outcome.
Yet what I now want to propose seems directly in tension with this: that, in a
priority-setting exercise, we can think of such cases of uncertainty in terms of a
probability range nonetheless, and that it may be a good idea to do so. Suppose –
say, in the climate change example – that the odds of a certain outcome occur-
ring are not negligible. Then one would not want to think of the likelihood of
that outcome happening as miniscule – nor, of course, as all but 100 per cent. (In
other cases, one might prefer to say: the odds are reasonable; small, but
noteworthy; considerable; or use yet other and perhaps more informative charac-
terizations; and such variations may influence how we want to think of the likeli-
hood of that outcome, as somewhat greater or smaller, or being in a certain
range of magnitude rather than another.74) When does one start to think of the
probability of an outcome as miniscule? For some outcomes, this will be when
one thinks of it as having a chance of less than 10 per cent; for others, a chance
 The challenge of future people  81
of less than 1 per cent; for others, of still less.75 One can ask the same question at
the other side of the spectrum: when does one start thinking about a certain
outcome as virtually certain? For some outcomes, if its chance is 90 per cent or
more, for others if it is 99.9 per cent or more.
Now, if one is going to use the resulting (very broad) probability ranges in a
priority-setting exercise, it is essential to keep two things in mind. First, one
should never forget what function these probabilities have, namely to avoid
thinking of the probability of a threat as miniscule on the one hand and virtually
certain on the other – or something similar in certain other cases. It is in light of
this role that the probabilities were picked. Second, the priority-setting exercise
that I have in mind is not mechanical, but essentially involves judging various
relevant factors so as to arrive at an overall judgment concerning which protec-
tions of important interests ought in the end to be provided. One cannot use
quantifications of broad probability ranges simply as input in multiplications (of
the size of the good or bad in question and its chance: its magnitude multiplied
by its probability).
However, why would one want to work with such broad probability ranges in
the first place? I’d say: because if one does not do it, and instead just keeps
thinking of the threat of massive losses as ‘not negligible’ or some such thing,
one runs the risk (in line with what was argued at the beginning of this section)
of ending up thinking of it either too lowly, and then one risks concluding rather
quickly that the present will have to get priority: that what are certainly serious
threats to important interests in the present will have to get precedence. Or if, on
the contrary, one jumps at the threatening undertones of ‘not negligible’, one
risks thinking of the threat too highly and one may want to avoid these massive
losses at just about any cost. Against these risks, the probability range poten-
tially gives us a bit of a grip.
Yet, one might object, cases of genuine uncertainty are defined by our not
knowing any remotely precise probabilities. We do know, of course, that the
outcome in question is not certain; we also know that it is not contrived (that is,
there is, for example, a respectable scientific account associated with it). And in
some cases, we might know a bit more as well: the chance of the outcome seems
reasonable, or rather large, or small but non-negligible, etc. – but whatever we
might know more cannot be translated in any remotely precise probability
ranges. Are we really justified, then, in introducing broad probability ranges?
The reply can simply be this: we do know that the outcome in question is clearly
not certain, but that it is also not contrived and, as such, to be taken seriously;
and working with probability ranges could help to make sure that all this is ade-
quately put on the map in the priority-setting exercise.
Let me give an example of how this may work concretely. Consider a case
where one could avoid uncertain widespread hunger in the future by giving up
some quite important freedoms today – giving up these freedoms is, let us
suppose, necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently (one may
think of economic freedoms to purchase certain things or to travel across the
globe for certain reasons). If one simply thinks of the possibility of widespread
82  Novel challenges to human rights
hunger as ‘not negligible’, without associating a probability range with it, one may
easily be torn between two contrasting reactions. The first reaction zooms in on the
possibility of widespread hunger: we must go to great lengths to prevent that from
happening! This reaction, however, risks going too quickly and considering as not
weighty enough important freedoms in the present; and there may be a related risk
of not going to great enough pains to look for more acceptable alternatives. A
second possibility is to say: yes, there is some chance of things going wrong, but
let us not be too pessimistic and give up important freedoms too easily. But this
reaction, obviously, risks neglecting the interests of future people.
How are things when probability ranges are employed? I may then well start
thinking of the chance of widespread future famine as miniscule if I think of it as
having, say, a probability lower than 1 per cent.76 However, I ought to avoid think-
ing of the famine as having a miniscule probability because, by hypothesis, there is
a plausible scientific scenario that it may occur if we emit more than a certain
amount of greenhouse gases (but one cannot give probabilities). For this reason, it
is arguably a good idea to think of the widespread future hunger as having a prob-
ability of at least 1 per cent. In the face of this visualization, it will clearly be
inappropriate to say: ‘This is merely a vague possibility and we are not going to
give up important freedoms for the sake of that!’ On the other hand, through this
visualization, we now also see clearly that the occurrence of the widespread famine
is far from certain. It therefore becomes very urgent to find out whether there are
ways to avoid the famine without sacrificing important freedoms. If not, further sci-
entific questions will arise: Is the scientific scenario really plausible? Are there
different scenarios? Just how widespread would the famine be? Could there still be
ways to avert it, once it was directly imminent? Are the freedoms that we stand to
lose all that important after all? Could new freedoms be gained? Etc.
In short, I suggest that introducing quantitative elements, more precisely an
appropriate probability range, may make for a much more thorough investiga-
tion of what can and should be done, inasmuch as the dilemmatic aspects of the
priority-setting problem may become much more vivid.
Again, someone may say that the minimum probabilities chosen (as well as
the maximum probabilities) are completely without base. But, as I have emphas-
ized, they are merely meant to bring more vividly before our mind that the prob-
ability in question is not miniscule (nor almost approaching certainty), and the
probabilities should be chosen to convey this adequately in the case at hand.77
Now, that it is a good idea to visualize uncertainties is to a considerable
extent an empirical hypothesis. The aim for which it is done and the context in
which it is to function largely aren’t empirical, but whether it functions as envis-
aged (that is, whether visualizing an uncertainty in a certain situation as, for
example, 0.1 per cent conveys that its chance is non-negligible) is. Besides, and
as discussed before, other factors have of course to be considered as well when
setting priorities among human rights considerations, such as the importance of
the interests involved, the number of people involved and the availability of suit-
able duty bearers. All I want to propose here is that an appropriate visualization
of uncertainties could be an important element of the priority-setting exercise.78
 The challenge of future people  83
I want to consider now what assumptions about future people ought to be
made in such an exercise. Finally, in the chapter’s conclusion, I will come back
to the question of whether the framework that has been developed in this chapter
can really help with setting priorities among human rights, particularly where
there is a conflict between protecting very important interests of people now
alive and of future people.

Assumptions concerning number and interests of future people

What assumptions should one make about the number and about the important
interests of future people? How many people should in perpetuity be able to live
on earth? Where should they be able to live? What important interests79 should
we assume they will have? The answer to these questions can obviously make a
difference for what we (now alive) should do. To take an extreme example
(which Stephen Gardiner mentions80): if we only need to make sure that a small
number of people can in the future live in an underground dome, we probably
have to do very much less now than if we are morally required to make sure that
very many people can live widely across the earth. (If the dome scenario were
acceptable, there would be no problem with, for example, whole regions of the
world becoming too hot to live in, as may, because of climate change, be hap-
pening with the Middle East.) Or, to take a less far-fetched example: it may
make a difference if we should morally make sure that 15 billion people, rather
than five billion, can in perpetuity live on earth. If we prepare for the five billion,
when we should have prepared for the 15 billion, the level of protection of very
important interests that can be provided may be drastically lower as a result.
And that may be morally blameworthy if we should have prepared for more
people, indeed very blameworthy because we are speaking of very important
interests.
I want to defend that the assumptions made should not be very ‘minimal’,
such as that only a fairly small number of people should in perpetuity be able to
live on earth, and merely at very limited places. But we should not go with
‘maximal’ assumptions either – say, that 100 billion people should at all times
be able to live everywhere on earth.81 More particularly, I want to defend the
following:

1. As for the number of people that should in perpetuity be able to live on the
face of the earth, we (people now alive) should make sure that the number
that will be alive according to high-growth projections (say, 20–25 billion at
the top point in time82) is used in a priority-setting exercise concerning the
protection of very important interests. This is somewhere between a very
low number (e.g. one billion) and an extremely high number (e.g. 100
billion), while preferring to err on the high side – the side of safety.
2. As for the very important interests of future people that qualify for reliable
protection, those interests should not be restricted to what are (almost) cer-
tainly their very important interests, but also include what will plausibly,
84  Novel challenges to human rights
although not certainly, be their very important interests.83 Similarly, reliable
protections should not be restricted to what will (almost) certainly be pre-
conditions for meeting these interests, but also include what will plausibly
be preconditions. (Sometimes, very important interests and preconditions
may coincide, as in the case of having enough food and freedom of move-
ment, which will almost certainly be among future people’s very important
interests, while at the same time being preconditions for other very
important interests of theirs to be met.) Examples of very important inter-
ests that they will plausibly have may be interests in being able to enjoy
certain kinds of learning or culture (say, Latin or 20th-century architecture)
and plausible preconditions may include being able to use certain rare earth
metals (potentially useful for a variety of technologies) and having certain
marine ecosystems intact. Thus, a fairly wide array of interests should be
accommodated – but not a virtually boundless one. For example, we may
assume from the outset that old buildings of cultural value may sometimes
be demolished and probably also – which relates instrumentally to people’s
interest in being able to have enough food and other resources – that people
should be able to live in coastal regions, but not in all of them.

I am aware that much more remains to be said by way of articulation of what

a ‘middle road’ would be, when it comes to assumptions about the number and
interests of future people.84 However, I want to leave this for now and ask what
the arguments are for taking such a middle road. It is important to keep in mind
that the assumptions presently under discussion would come out of the first step
of the exercise of setting priorities among human rights, that is to say, the step
where a first selection of interests and protections is made: important interests,
important protections, of which a non-contrived account is available that they
are indeed important. These will then be the interests and protections among
which priorities are set in a second step so as to decide which protections of
which interests are all-things-considered to be provided as a matter of human
rights (see above). In the case of interests of present people, this is usually done
by showing what goes well for someone if these interests are adequately
attended to and protected, and what goes badly for them if they are not.85 If only
very few interests are admitted into the priority-setting exercise in this first step – I
am still thinking of interests of people now alive – this will be inadequate to
what is actually important to them.86 By contrast, if very many interests are
admitted, it will make the priority-setting exercise rather unmanageable87 – the
most important interests may well suffer, although this need not be so if the
­priority-setting exercise is carried out well.88 It is the same for the interests of
future people: including very few interests may well be inadequate to what is
actually important to them, including very many may make priority-setting
unmanageable and may make very important interests lose out.
Concerning population size: it may well be that the number of people figuring
in the projections (‘20 billion people in 2100’) will indeed be alive then; and, if the
population size should morally have been smaller (say, not larger than 15 billion),
 The challenge of future people  85
it is not the fault of the people who will be alive in, for example, 2100.89 So,
we’d better, in the first step of the priority-setting exercise, reckon with the
number of people figuring in the most plausible (high) projections. But not a
number even much larger than that; for then the exercise may well become
unmanageable or present people may well lose out unduly – although, again, it
may still be that they win out in the second step of the priority-setting exercise.
These arguments, it may be said critically, have a somewhat circular aspect to
them: one already has to know how much one weighs the present and future and
use that as input into the arguments, rather than as their outcome. However, I
would say that these arguments can at least help to explicate and clarify what we
find acceptable, and that the modicum of circularity in them does not make them
useless.
Suppose now that it is possible to accommodate even many more interests of
future people, or a much greater population, and to do so at hardly any cost to
the present. I am not sure how often this will be so: there are certainly win-win
situations, but at the same time, many things in a priority-setting exercise come
at a price in terms of at least opportunity costs – of other things that might
have been done instead. Yet sometimes this will hardly be the case: restricting
climate change to two degrees Celsius, say, may make the earth inhabitable in
perpetuity for 20 billion people, but also for many more, and doing so may lead
to the protection of a moderate range of important interests of theirs, but pos-
sibly of a much broader range as well. However, if there are additional costs to
achieving more, then one should go with the moderate assumptions as to inter-
ests and population size.

5.4 To conclude
This chapter has proposed a formal framework for setting priorities among
human rights. According to this framework, it has to be made sure that claims
meet a number of (what I have called) entrance conditions: that they concern
very important interests, very important protections of those interests, and that
the threat to the interest and efficacy of the protection meet a plausible ‘non-­
contrivance’ condition (my term). Second, in setting priorities among the claims
that meet the appropriate entry conditions, a number of factors have to be con-
sidered, such as: how important the threatened interest is, the number of people
involved, the magnitude and certainty of the threat, how certain it is that the pro-
tection will be effective, whether suitable duty bearers are available and whether
certain appropriate constraints – such as that interests should not be actively
attacked – have been met.
In particular, I have suggested that the framework proposed in this chapter
could, in cases of genuine conflict, help to decide whether to give priority to pro-
tecting interests of future people or of people now alive. Two kinds of cases
were already clear at the beginning of the chapter. First, that interests of
future people ought to be protected where very important interests of very many
future people are greatly jeopardized and where protections can be provided at
86  Novel challenges to human rights
little cost to people in the present. (For problems related to climate change –
extreme weather events, threats to food and water provision, loss of biodiversity,
etc. – which have provided the leading examples throughout the chapter, there
will only sometimes be ‘little cost’.) A second clear example is one where pro-
tecting very important interests of future people inevitably – emphatically inevitably –
implies that the very important interests of very many people now go unmet.
Then, I have argued, the present should typically be prioritized, even if many
more people are concerned in the future. An example may be preventing
imminent famine in the present versus protecting food provision for future
people – for example, in the light of climate change – in a number of ways.
The beginning framework outlined in this chapter can, I believe, help to
decide additional cases, beyond the clear ones just mentioned. First (as indicated
in Section 5.2), there are cases that are overdetermined – where both the number
of people involved, the importance of the interests, the certainty of the efficacy
of the protection, etc. are more on one side of the equation than on the other. Yet
these overdetermined cases may not be so interesting inasmuch as they will have
been relatively clear from the beginning. Whether to provide, where there is a
conflict, a very certain protection of food provision for many future people or a very
moderate protection of the freedom to work for a few people now, is not a hard
choice. Still, the framework helps to see why the choice is clear.
The harder cases are ones like this: suppose that, in order to prevent dangerous
climate change (with the extreme weather events and the problems of water and
food provision, etc. it entails), certain freedoms – freedoms of movement, of
choice of occupation, etc. – need to be curtailed in the present; and these freedoms
perhaps even need to be (close to) actively limited – and in any case provided with
less protection.90 Should this be done? I’d argue that reflection about the certainty
of the problems (with the visualization of them proposed above, with a percentage
of, for example, 1 per cent or 0.1 per cent where appropriate), about the number of
future people to be counted with, about who are suitable potential duty bearers and
so on – that all this does potentially help to get more clarity about the problem.
Sometimes the conclusion may be that the choice at hand is a tragic one and that
one should look especially hard to find third ways of avoiding the dilemma and
preserving both sides, for example freedom of movement in the present and food
provision in the future. Or, alternatively, it may on reflection be overwhelmingly
clear that, given what is at stake in the future, certain curtailments of freedoms in
the present simply ought to be accepted. And a third possibility is that, on the con-
trary, some problems in the future – say, certain extreme weather events – concern
limited numbers of people and remain very uncertain, so that solutions should be
found that do not weigh very heavily on the present.
I am not saying that the framework will always make clear which of these
three options (or other ones still91) should be chosen in a given case. But it does
generally have the potential to facilitate and improve reflection on specific cases
as to how priorities among human rights ought to be set.92
But can people and societies really be moved to act in accordance with
human rights? This is what the next chapter will investigate.
 The challenge of future people  87
Notes
1 In the philosophical literature, this is called the ‘non-existence problem’, see e.g.
Meyer (2015).
2 For the criteria for attributing human rights duties, see Ch. 2 above.
3 Some will say that future people can have no complaints against environmentally
harmful behaviour of earlier generations in cases where these people owe their exist-
ence to such harmful behaviour; in such cases, they are – at least if they still have
lives worth living – not justified in complaining, even if many of their important
interests are badly protected. The problem involved here is the so-called ‘non-identity
problem’ (made famous by Parfit 1984; see also Hurka 2001; Meyer 2015). It has
received more than its fair share of attention in the philosophical literature, so I will
leave it aside here and simply assume that it can be solved. The literature concerned
has, among other things, investigated the assumptions on which the problem depends
(it assumes, for instance, a certain conception of identity, and that something can only
be bad if it is bad for someone). I would favour a solution explaining why people can
still have weighty moral reasons for demanding protection of their important inter-
ests, even though they would not have existed if there had not been certain lacks of
protection (e.g. they would not have existed if long-distance flights had been ban-
ished). Parfit’s own sympathies go in a somewhat similar – a so-called ‘impersonal’ –
direction (1984, e.g. Ch. 16).
4 Climate change will be my central case throughout the chapter, mostly explicitly, but
sometimes also implicitly – for example often when I speak about the food provision
of future people. Yet there may also be other problems (of pollution, depletion of
natural resources, etc.) that raise quite similar ethical issues.
5 Both steps work with more concrete human rights claims than those found in, for
example, the UDHR, where it is often not very clear which protections ought to be
provided and for whom. Cf. Sections 5.1 below and 3.1 above.
6 For example, it is common to distinguish between risks (where approximate probabil-
ities are known), uncertainties (where they are not known) and situations of ignorance
(where it is not even known what might happen).
7 I am then thinking of the philosophical literature. Exceptions include Nickel (2007,
2008, 2010) and Gilabert (2009, 2010), cf. also Philips (2012, 2014). And there is, of
course, literature that is indirectly relevant. For example, the entire justice literature
deals with scarcity and hence, it might be said, with priority-setting, but it seldom
does so explicitly when considering human rights. I am not aware of any discussions
of priority-setting and human rights that explicitly include future people or uncertain-
ties; for example, the discussions of precaution referenced in Section 5.2 do not deal
explicitly with human rights. Philosophical discussions of assumptions to be made
about the interests and number of future people are, for all I can see, usually rather
implicit; Caney (2009) seems a typical example.
Some will say that, considering such issues as those to do with priority-setting, we
are talking at such a concrete level that it is no longer part of human rights. I doubt it;
but, however this may be, the really important thing is to think about this level – it is
far too important to leave it unthematized.
8 Cf. Goldschmidt (2012). See Section 5.2 below (the discussion of interdependence
among human rights in note 36).
9 Importantly, I am thinking about human rights claims at a concrete level here – see
below for elaboration. Furthermore, I will leave aside the respective rhetorical merits
of talk of balancing and priority-setting.
10 That is to say, as majors of a syllogism which, combined with quite straightforward
minors, yield definite conclusions about all concrete cases of conflicts among human
rights considerations.
11 Cf. Mulgan (2001), p. 19.
88  Novel challenges to human rights
12 It is not, in other words, a fact beyond dispute that human rights are so multifaceted,
etc. as to make the quest for general principles of priority-setting clearly hopeless
from the start.
13 See note 92 below.
14 Take, for example, the right to freedom of expression: ‘Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through
any media and regardless of frontiers’. (Art. 19, UDHR). This Article mentions
(albeit somewhat implicitly) a negative duty (‘without interference’) and it is clear
throughout the Declaration that governments – primarily each government for its own
people – are regarded as the main duty bearers of human rights. But whether the
­government also has intermediate duties (to protect the freedom of expression from
interference by third parties) and positive duties (to make sure that people can actu-
ally express their opinion) is left unclear. (Of course, in law, such things often do get
clarified, e.g. in additional treaties.)
15 Cf. Section 3.1 above.
16 This is the general thrust and it is not to say that certain matters of priority-setting
cannot be dealt with at a more general level (indeed, principled priority-setting is rel-
atively general), and certain issues concerning universality at a more specific level.
17 These will often be interests of broad categories of people across place (and fre-
quently also time, see Section 3.1); but I would not list this as a separate entrance
condition because interests of smaller categories should also be included by subsum-
ing them under more general headings. See Section 2.2 above. With protections, it
only matters that they are about interests that qualify, and are very important protec-
tions of those interests; they need not concern broad categories of people.
18 Cf. Gardiner (2006), n. 61.
19 Shue (2010), p. 155, although Shue is talking here, not about human rights, but about
the action required in the face of climate change.
20 See Section 2.2 above.
21 Cf. Düwell (2012); the argument I give in the text is different from Düwell’s.
22 See Section 2.2 above.
23 UDHR, Art. 24.
24 It may be said that resolution of this second case, as well as of the third one below,
already indicates an outcome of the second step of priority-setting – and that in that
sense the conflicts are not spurious. This may be so; but the point is that the outcomes
are already clear from the outset.
25 These remarks may be read as a further development of the book’s conception of
human rights outlined in Ch. 2 above.
26 Just how concrete or detailed the articulation of the safeguards needs to be will
depend on how concrete an articulation of the right in question is intended.
27 The term has influentially been used by Robert Nozick (1974, p. 28).
28 This is one sense in which (human) rights confer what Thomas Nagel has called ‘a
status’ on someone. See Nagel (1991), pp. 148–149.
29 The first and second point take inspiration from what Samuel Scheffler (1988,
pp. 1ff.) regards as one standard criticism of consequentialism, understood as the
view that one must morally always do what, on expectation, produces the best
outcome overall: its negligence of distributive issues. The third point broadly
resembles a second standard criticism: that consequentialism (not only allows, but
even) requires that agents sometimes do horrible things. A third prominent criticism,
consequentialism’s being too demanding, is not discussed here.
30 Below, I will use ‘realizing/protecting a right’ in a broad way, as covering everything
that has (inspired by Henry Shue) been referred to as ‘respecting, protecting and ful-
filling’ a right: not actively violating (assaulting the interests, e.g. in having enough to
 The challenge of future people  89
eat), preventing violations by others and providing additional protections of an
interest (cf. Shue 1996). See Section 2.2 above.
31 I assume that group interests ultimately matter because they matter to individuals.
Given their importance to individuals, some way must be found to incorporate them,
without letting certain individuals fall victim to doing so (cf. Kymlicka 2002,
pp. 327ff.).
32 Cf. Goldschmidt (2012), p. 59.
33 Indeed, earlier (and below again) I moved (and will move) much beyond the rather
minimal constraint that no individual may lose out altogether, and defend that there
should be, in the absence of very good reasons to the contrary, equality of protection
among individuals. So, the constraint as formulated here is really very minimal.
34 And, one that will not be plausible in all contexts; in some cases, there could, at any
rate, be a very entrenched and ‘stable’ neglect of certain beneficiaries and/or interests.
Conversely, however, an arrangement that attends to all persons and interests may be
surmised to be relatively stable – relatively isolated from quick and arbitrary changes.
35 By ‘all interests’, I mean all interests as found with individuals, e.g. one particular
individual’s freedom to speak her mind, her freedom to have enough to eat.
36 However, one generally cannot say that human rights are in some very strong way
interdependent, so that that would be a reason why one needs to attend to the protec-
tion of all important interests. See Nickel (2008). Interdependence of two human
rights claims would mean that (for conceptual, empirical, etc. reasons) one cannot
have one human rights claim fulfilled without the other and vice versa. Nickel argues
that it is often not plausible that there is such interdependence (especially not at lower
levels of realization of human rights). He also argues that indivisibility of human
rights, understood as all human rights being strongly interdependent (‘systemwide’,
as Nickel calls it), is not plausible at all.
It is useful to elaborate on indivisibility a bit: some lawyers and activists defend
that human rights are indivisible and that, therefore, principled priority-setting among
human rights is not appropriate. But if they were indivisible, we could not even
balance them on a case-by-case level: one could not have one human rights claim ful-
filled (or have a certain level of fulfilment of it) without also having that level of
fulfilment for all other human rights claims. But the lawyers and activists concerned
do often find case-by-case balancing between human rights possible as well as appro-
priate (see e.g. Goldschmidt, 2012). It follows, I think, that they cannot really be
committed to the indivisibility of human rights. Probably, they are rather committed
to the normative claim that no human right is, as such, more important than any other.
Saying this is certainly compatible with case-by-case balancing; it is even compatible,
I would say, with principled priority-setting among human rights.
37 The observations that now follow in the text are not, by themselves, enough to show
that one cannot compensate for having few protections of freedom of expression by
(say) having a lot of protections of security. To show that such compensation is
impossible, one must go into the intrinsic and instrumental importance of all the
interests whose protection initially qualifies as a matter of human rights. I cannot do
that here, but take the examples of security and freedom of expression. Imagine a
state that wishes to protect security so thoroughly that it subjects all expressed
thoughts of its citizens to scrutiny, and will even use lie detectors, etc. where it deems
this useful. It is plain, I believe, that this is a rather indefensible situation, given what
the lives of people in such a situation look like: they are severely hampered in articu-
lating their thoughts, discussing them with others and, thus, in steering their lives.
One has every reason to prefer having a very substantial degree of freedom of
­expression and, if that is the price, to an extent a less stringent protection of security.
Moreover, it is very doubtful whether security can really be improved by such a strict
surveillance of all expressions – in such a situation, the party doing the surveillance
90  Novel challenges to human rights
has so much power that this puts people’s security in great jeopardy; that party can
probably take their security away at will. Relatedly, people having meaningful
freedom of expression would also help the realization of their right to security as well
as of many of their other rights, as people could then better scrutinize how well or
badly their security is being protected.
38 Where this is so, it might be called some kind of interdependence, albeit it will some-
times be only one-way (as well as sometimes only moderate).
39 The organ example only works for actively setting back someone’s important inter-
ests; it clearly no longer works if we say: I can either give my organs to save your life
or I can save the life of five others with them. It would perhaps not even work if I
took away (albeit, as always, not at will or overnight) a protection that you enjoy
against having your organs taken by certain third parties, in order to provide three
others with a similar protection.
  Importantly, for some very important interests, such as freedom of movement and
freedom of occupation, setting them back actively should in certain contexts remain
under discussion – but very good reasons are needed. The constraint against actively
setting back interests could, thus, also be called a very strong presumption; it will
always continue to require judgement.
40 Thomas Pogge (2008, 2004, 2005) has tried to assimilate the behaviour of certain
parties, such as governments of rich countries, with a violation of negative duties.
Sometimes it is; but cases where, as in one of his examples, the persistence of severe
poverty is due to the contribution of both such governments and local dictators (and
where, let us assume, neither of them alone would be sufficient) are not, in my view,
to be completely assimilated to violating a negative duty – although, as emphasized in
the text, they do certainly and clearly not merely involve a failure to fulfil a positive
duty either.
41 Discussion of this point should countenance various complexities and uncertainties,
including epistemic ones. However, this is not to deny that there are particular
examples of joint disrespect for which an absolute constraint against being implied in
it, is plausible.
42 See e.g. Iris Marion Young’s (2011) ‘social connection model’.
43 To be sure, in certain special circumstances, omissions to do certain (good) things
strike us as morally as problematic as doing certain (bad) things (cf. Scheffler 2001,
p. 39). Or, for the present context, failings to realize human rights strike us as morally
as problematic as active disrespect. But it is beyond this chapter’s scope to examine
in which cases this would be so.
44 These will be very exceptional indeed. For example, even for conduct in war, there
seems a very good case that an agent may hardly ever (except arguably in certain
extreme cases of so-called pre-emption, but not prevention) actively disrespect
human rights.
45 As James Nickel (2008) shows, the number and variety of conflicts that are possible
within human rights are quite daunting.
46 Scheffler (1992), pp. 39ff.; he discusses such a procedure in a very critical vein (in a
very different context than the present chapter’s).
47 Cf. also Shue (1996) on basic rights.
48 Cf. UDHR, Art. 19; Art. 23(1). It is not my concern here what exactly the plausible
content of these freedoms is.
49 What concerns me here is not the need to provide particularly vulnerable right-holders
with extra protections: whether that should happen I regard as a (particular) question
regarding equality of protection. The point here is, rather, that certain right-holders
cannot stand up for themselves as well as others can, to see to it that they even get the
same protections as everyone else.
50 Factor (d) above already to some extent gestures in this direction. It is beyond the
present scope to elaborate on the notion of imminence.
 The challenge of future people  91
51 I do not say, of course, that what is imminent must always win out over longer-term
protections. That would – in the face of, for instance, problems of climate change –
be highly problematic.
52 Of course, these activists and lawyers might also simply recognize – without further
grounding – certain constraints, e.g. against ever violating certain negative duties. But
arguably, the absoluteness of rights sometimes goes beyond negative duties.
53 In Ch. 4, note 53. Furthermore, it may be noted that equality of protection in the sense
of people receiving the same protection of an important interest when their need for
protection is the same, is best understood as equivalent protection (see Ch. 4, note 2).
A rather broad and systemic notion of equivalence will globally be needed when
different countries have different priority-setting exercises. But as said, the frame-
work outlined in this chapter is first of all to be understood, not as being for practical
use by countries, etc., but as broad and general – as a contribution to reflection in the
background culture (see Ch. 2, note 16).
54 Talk of something being ‘on the menu’ remains somewhat coarse, but I take it that it
is a good enough approximation of reality. To see whether it is justified in a particular
case, there may be no alternative but to look closely at the (scientific) evidence at
hand.
55 It will shortly be discussed how to visualize uncertainties in the priority-setting exer-
cise. For (approximately) known probabilities, too, it might be that sometimes a visu-
alization should be chosen which differs from what they actually are. See below.
56 For some recent literature on precaution, see e.g. Hartzell-Nichols (2017); Meyer
et al. (2018); Pissarskoi (2018). All stress that great risks, as well as catastrophic out-
comes that are in some sense realistic, require special attention in decision making,
etc. Furthermore, all emphasize that catastrophes, etc. cannot simply be avoided no
matter what, but that we need a complex decision-making framework, which takes
into account a variety of factors. What little relatively hard guidelines are offered, e.g.
(by Pissarskoi in his commendable essay) to avoid options that could set in motion an
uncontrollable causal chain (cf. Pissarskoi 2018, p. 202) may, in practice, often be
relatively helpless: when such options can be avoided?
57 They are proposed in Gardiner (2006) and Shue (2010 [=2014, pp. 263–286]). Shue
explicitly refers to Gardiner, but is not concerned with clarifying exactly how their
approaches are similar or different (but cf. Shue 2010, p. 159, note 9).
58 More precisely, Gardiner and Shue mainly focus on uncertainties associated with
threats (the warming and, more particularly, the adverse effects generated by it), but
much of what they say also applies to the efficacy of protections.
59 Gardiner (2006), p. 51, n. 61.
60 Shue (2010), p. 155. Shue allows that there may be other possible ways to specify the
‘entrance condition’ (my term).
61 Gardiner (2006), pp. 46–47 and pp. 51ff. (my rephrasing). Gardiner speaks of a ‘core
precautionary principle’ and also adds the following condition: we either (1) do not
know probabilities or (2) we have good reason to disregard them. I am talking about
the first case and take it, with regard to the second case, that one should usually in
some way take known probabilities into account in the priority-setting exercise; but I
will come back to exactly how.
  The conditions mentioned in the text are sufficient, but not necessary, Gardiner
cautions. In other words, it may be that we also ought to avoid a particular worst
outcome under different conditions.
62 See Shue (2010), p. 148, my paraphrase. Shue also stresses very much that one
should avoid actively imposing these losses on future people. To do so is very
different, he says, from merely passively failing to prevent the losses from occurring.
I would say that, where the imposition of losses is in effect a direct, active violation
of a human right, it ought never to be done (see above). Where (as will frequently be
the case) it is not that, but there is a certain active involvement and it is not merely a
92  Novel challenges to human rights
matter of ‘letting happen’ either, this will sometimes influence, among other things,
who is the most suitable bearer of certain duties.
63 Avoiding massive losses could again be labelled the ‘precautionary’ way of acting
(but hardly anything depends on the label), although Shue does not use this term.
64 Ibid.: ‘the costs of prevention are not excessive, (a) in light of the magnitude of the
possible losses, and (b) even considering the other important demands on our
resources’.
65 Emphasis mine.
66 Or, as Shue says, we do not care so much that the cost is excessive. This, too, is
vague; but it is clear, in any case, that if we act only as long as the cost to ourselves
remains small, we will do less than if we act until the cost to ourselves is ‘excessive’.
This enlarges the scope of the absolute interpretation in Shue’s case: it will be applic-
able more often. But in many cases it will still be inapplicable.
67 Or the precise formulation should actually be less subjective: we have good reason to
care less. ‘We’ is those who do the giving up, e.g. people now alive.
68 Only when this avoidance does not come instead of other significant protections that
could potentially have been provided (e.g. with the same resources) will there not be
great (opportunity) costs.
69 In fact, the priority-setting framework will, at least at the background, always be
involved, also where we care only moderately or little about what we give up. But
there its outcome will be clear.
70 But I’d hesitate to omit ‘may’: Philips (2007), Chs. 2–4. Moreover, as for human
rights, they may plausibly only consume part of a society’s resources.
71 In practice if, for example, the ‘heat’ of climate change gets up very much and one is
considering societies that are not so rich and need to adjust away from fossil fuels.
72 To indirectly give some feel for what this means, let me mention one case that I
would already tend to regard as one of risk rather than uncertainty. Someone who
knew the Libyan context in 2011 on the ground could perhaps have said that, if the
international community were to do nothing, the chance was very considerable that
Gaddafi would murder many inhabitants of Benghazi. Given Gaddafi’s behaviour in
the past, and given that the person making this judgement was, let us assume, inti-
mately familiar with Libya’s history and its political and social realities, she might
have had good reason for saying that the chance of widespread murdering was
considerably higher than 50–50 – although it was not a certainty. Of course, a prob-
ability range from ‘considerably higher than 50 per cent’ to ‘by no means certain’ is
still very broad, approximately from p = 0.6 to p = 0.9. Still, I would not call this a
case of uncertainty, but one of risk. In cases of uncertainty, in other words, we do not
even have this much to go by.
73 Or: of both sides of the equation, if one were to think – but this is generally too
simple – in terms of a conflict between present and future people.
74 For example, suppose that the likelihood seems considerable in the sense (drawing on
Shue) that one understands the mechanism of a threat (of flooding etc.) and that the
conditions for its operation are beginning to be fulfilled. Then, one may want to put a
higher number on the lower end of the likelihood (e.g. not 1 per cent, but more) in
order to visualize it adequately.
75 It may also depend on the person. Sometimes, you read in the newspapers that behav-
ing this or that way will increase your chance of contracting a certain disease by 1 per
cent. My hunch is that many people will regard this as a very small increase; but
some may regard it as one that is huge.
Sometimes, even very small chances matter greatly. If having a nuclear power
plant would bring with it a 0.0001 per cent chance of a disaster that would wipe out
humanity, I would personally find that far too big a chance. This example may point
to a problem for my suggestion in the text: suppose this were a case of uncertainty
and one only knows that there is a ‘non-negligible’ probability that operating the
 The challenge of future people  93
nuclear power plant will wipe out humanity. Are we going to put the probability of
this happening at, say, 1 per cent then? My reply is negative. First off, mostly the
nuclear power plant case will not be one of uncertainty, but one will know more
precise probability ranges. Second, 1 per cent is not an adequate translation of ‘non-
negligible’ in this case. In some cases, I would propose probabilities of 1 per cent or
even 10 per cent because, otherwise, one will regard the probability as miniscule. In
the nuclear power plant case, by contrast, one can have a far smaller probability and
one will still not think of it as miniscule. Indeed, I would rate a probability of 1 per
cent that humanity will be wiped out as ‘beyond huge’.
76 Again, some may prefer 0.1 per cent or 5 per cent: this is a matter of dispute and will
also vary across cases. See the previous footnote.
77 How are we to deal with uncertainties concerning a protection against threats? If we
do not know any remotely precise chances, we cannot say that, if a certain course of
action is chosen, the chance of a massive loss is ‘significantly lower’. But we may
say, for example, that if a certain course of action is chosen (e.g. to realize a certain
greater reduction of greenhouse gases rather than another), the chance shifts from
‘reasonable’ to ‘miniscule’, or that it goes off the menu altogether; yet we cannot
translate that into remotely precise probabilities.
78 As briefly indicated before (see note 55), but this bears repeating, the importance of
visualization could also lead to introducing risk (i.e. known or approximately known
probabilities) being introduced in the priority-setting exercise differently than as what
the actual probability is. This should, following the reasoning in the text, in principle
be done whenever the actual probability visualizes the chance incorrectly. For
example, it actually is 0.001 per cent, but should be regarded as non-negligible, and
that would not happen if the actual probability is used.
79 Alternatively, one may call them needs. But the important thing is what content they
should be given, and not much, if anything, may depend on whether they are called
interests or needs. See below.
80 Gardiner (2011), p. 43; Gardiner obviously doesn’t argue that it would be enough to
prepare for such a scenario.
81 I mean this ‘should’ as input in the priority-setting exercise about the protection of
very important interests. This is also the case for the two points below.
Of course, the addition ‘in perpetuity’/‘at all times’ means that the total number of
future people that we should count with is very much larger.
82 This is an estimate that some make; but it may be high, compare e.g. https://esa.
un.org/unpd/wpp/publications/files/wpp.2017_keyfindings.pdf. It is beyond the present
scope to discuss in detail what the best estimate would be.
83 Cf. also Section 3.1. ‘Plausibly’ refers to a substantive judgment, based on a reason-
able standard of evidence (which would need further discussion), about what will be
good or important for people; a judgement that something is ‘certainly’ the case is
based on a higher standard of evidence, e.g. an appropriate scientific account.
84 Furthermore, one would also need to make assumptions about what kind of threats
there will be to the relevant interests and what kind of protections could be helpful,
what duty bearers may be around, etc. In these regards, the future will sometimes
plausibly be rather like the present, but not always.
85 See Chs. 2 and 3 above.
86 By this, I don’t necessarily mean what they find important. There may also, for
example, be an objective account of what is actually important to them.
87 Indeed, one could say that making the exercise manageable – keeping the weighty
interests and threats adequately on the map – is the point of having a first step in the
first place. Further discussion of the notion of ‘manageability’ must await another
occasion.
88 But there will always be a temptation to give at least some attention to all the interests
and protections included in the exercise (even if the constraints I have defended
94  Novel challenges to human rights
above as part of a second step are not yet on the table). Better then, probably, not to
include certain interests and protections in the first place.
89 Someone might say: it is the fault of some people now alive, those who have too
many children. Let us assume that this is so – although it is quite dubious that the
argument can be made. If so, it may be unfair to the others now alive to have to
reckon with a rather larger world population in the future. But it is also unfair to
people in the future if they are not reckoned with.
90 Cf. note 39 above. Freedom of movement may be an ironic example inasmuch as cur-
rently so many people worldwide lack it to an important extent. The very important
freedoms/interests associated with economic development in the global South provide
examples of particularly hard cases, if there are genuine conflicts with other
important freedoms/interests.
91 Perhaps solutions saying that the problem is in some important way misstated.
92 This, in turn, may lead to a refinement of the framework, which clearly remains a
beginning one. As for the role of the framework, and of the considerations in the
present chapter at large: I regard this chapter, as well as the rest of the book, as a contri-
bution to discussions among academics, activists, policymakers and citizens in general –
or in John Rawls’s words (2007, pp. 6–7), as a contribution made in the ‘background
culture’ of a society, and I leave it open whether it could also be more than that.
Part III
Getting to realization
6 The question of motivation
Can people be motivated as needed
for realizing human rights?

Can human rights be effectively realized in societies worldwide? In other words,

can societies across the world effectively function in accordance with human
rights?1 If human rights are to make sense as the minimum requirements of
global justice – that is how I have understood them – they must, at least in ideal
circumstances, be able effectively to be realized in societies worldwide. By ideal
circumstances I mean, after John Rawls,2 circumstances where institutions (laws
and other arrangements in society) are optimal, given human beings as they are.
It is of course a large question how human beings are, but one may at least say:
neither saints nor devils (I will come back to this). More precisely, in ideal cir-
cumstances, societies should be capable of being guided by human rights not
only effectively, but also acceptably (that is, through morally acceptable means)
and across generations.3 Are they indeed capable of this? This is what I will call
the question of motivation or, synonymously, the motivational question.
This question is real because, on the one hand, it is not evidently impossible to
provide an answer to it; if that were the case, we would be done immediately. On
the other hand, it is also not clear how and even if it can be answered. For it is safe
to say that the world as a whole has never been guided by human rights effect-
ively, acceptably and across generations. To be sure, there have been cases where
human rights have, for quite a long time, been rather effectively realized in soci-
eties. These cases will be investigated below, but I will argue that their relevance
for the present chapter’s purposes is, in the end, limited. But let me first explain
some central notions, and also what the chapter’s structure and ambitions are.
Humans being motivated (having motivation) to act in accordance with
human rights refers, in this chapter, not to people having the intention to act in
accordance with human rights (which is how many psychologists would under-
stand motivation), but to people actually acting – actually moving – in accord-
ance with human rights.4 Effective guidance means that the guidance is not just
in letter, but in fact: human rights should in fact be realized in societies
­worldwide.5 This means something like the following: that there are no official
violations of human rights, that is, cases of active disregard for human rights by
the government or by officials. It also means that the violations that exception-
ally occur by individual members of a society are effectively prosecuted. Finally,
it means that the intermediate and positive duties are also effectively taken up
98  Getting to realization
and receive sufficient resources (think, for example, of maintaining an adequate
educational system).6 And guidance that is acceptable does not come at an unac-
ceptable price, not in terms of human rights themselves (but then, societies
would not really be effectively guided by human rights after all), nor in terms of
more ambitious ideals of justice,7 nor in certain terms (partly) different from
this. For instance, people behaving in accordance with human rights must not be
incompatible with them seeing themselves as acting for reasons. To take a
straightforward example from an environmental context, if individuals are made
to behave so as to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the methods by which
they are brought to do so (prohibitions, financial incentives, nudging, etc.) must
be in line with them being agents who can choose their own courses of action,
and these methods must in an appropriate way involve the capacities of
­individuals to reason and choose. This will often mean that something like the
following condition must be fulfilled: that people can at all times understand
themselves as acting for reasons or, at least, that they can judge after the actions
concerned that there were good reasons for these actions, and that they can in
some sense understand themselves as having acted for those reasons.8 Obvi-
ously, much more could be said about this, but that would go too far here. The
important thing in the present context is that, if some condition such as the one
just stated is not fulfilled, getting people to behave in accordance with human
rights will come at the price of disrespecting them as agents and will therefore
generally be unacceptable – as well as frequently not being in accordance with
human rights after all.
Finally, guidance across generations indicates that societies should not only
be effectively and acceptably guided by human rights at present, but that this
should also remain so across time (‘generations’ does not mean more than this
and should not be taken too literally). Note, incidentally, that there is another
intergenerational dimension that one must not confuse with this one: that human
rights should adequately include claims of future generations.
The chapter will be structured as follows. First (in the first part of Section 6.1),
it will be explained why the relevance of real-life cases for the motivational
question – of whether societies worldwide can, in ideal circumstances, be effect-
ively, acceptably and across generations guided by human rights – is limited.
Subsequently, I will (in the second part of Section 6.1) explain the approach that
will be taken instead – namely, giving a hypothetical indication of where the
robust empirical evidence may lead – and why it seems more promising. In this
approach, societies will (as will be explained) come into view via individuals,
and Section 6.2 will develop a substantive hypothesis about individual motiva-
tion, starting from Richard Rorty (first part of Section 6.2), but revising his position
at certain points (second part of Section 6.2). Section 6.3 will consider various
objections to the hypothesis developed, and Section 6.4 will conclude.
The ambitions of this chapter are only explorative. For, although there is
obviously an enormous literature about what it is that leads people actually to behave
as they do – large parts of the social sciences are concerned with this – there is
hardly any, for all I can see, explicitly dealing with the question of whether societies
 The question of motivation  99
worldwide can realize human rights effectively and also acceptably and across
generations.
Like the other chapters, this one, too, deals with ideal theory: it asks whether
societies worldwide can effectively, etc. be guided by human rights in situations
where, given people as they are, institutions are optimal. Focusing on ideal
theory provides a minimum test for human rights – if they cannot even motivate
in ideal situations, they will be unsuitable as an account of minimal global
justice. Of course, there are also many interesting questions as to whether human
rights will be able to motivate people in various kinds of non-ideal circum-
stances: of troubled socialization, certain kinds of conflicts and deprivation and,
more generally, of institutions that are not the best ones imaginable. All of these
non-ideal features are often found in our present world. Now, to think about
motivation in ideal circumstances may sometimes not be relevant for non-ideal
circumstances, but sometimes it will.9 In any case, it is relevant – as just
explained – for the evaluation of human rights.

6.1 How best to approach the motivational question

One way to approach this chapter’s central question – of whether societies world-
wide can effectively, as well as acceptably and across generations, be guided by
human rights – would be to look at real-life examples of societies where human
rights have in fact been realized effectively, acceptably and across generations. As I
will now argue, this approach has serious limits. The alternative I will subsequently
propose is to look at robust evidence, or some approximation thereof, with regard to
what motivates individuals to behave in accordance with human rights. Finally,
some complications of that approach, such as doubts as to whether societal motiva-
tion can be investigated by looking at individual motivation, will be considered.

The limited relevance of real-world cases

Real-world cases only have limited relevance for showing that societies world-
wide can effectively, acceptably and across generations be guided by human
rights. This is because, first, they do not concern the entire world, but only par-
ticular times and places. There may, for example, be effective guidance by
human rights in Canada in a particular period, but this says little about whether
this could also be the case across the world and/or at different times. Second,
there are very few good, let alone perfect, examples of human rights guiding a
society effectively, acceptably and across generations. At first sight, one can-
didate for such an example might be post-World War II Western Europe,10 with
the exception of, at least, Greece, Portugal and Spain because of the dictatorships
they had until the mid-1970s, as well as, in all likelihood, the UK because of the
conflict in Northern Ireland. Also, the post-war human rights record in other
Western European countries is not exactly clean either, looking at (for example)
the treatment of disabled people; but it arguably still remains relatively
favourable.
100  Getting to realization
In addition, the relatively favourable human rights record of Western Europe
after World War II emphatically only concerns its own citizens, and not the
treatment of outsiders, including refugees. If this treatment is taken into account,
the picture becomes different and decidedly less favourable. Concerning
refugees, I am thinking of taking in very low numbers – in many Western European
countries, far fewer than what could plausibly be a global fair share11 – and of
keeping asylum seekers away from the EU’s borders, as well as of the ways that
asylum seekers are sometimes treated while waiting for a decision on their legal
status. As for the treatment of outsiders more generally, one may, among other
things, think of the role that many Western European countries play in helping
to uphold an international institutional structure that is manifestly unfair to the
global poor, for example because it includes privileges for dictators to borrow
money and sell resources abroad.12
Moreover, even if the internal record of post-World War II Western Europe
concerning human rights realization should be relatively favourable, this would
certainly not include regard for the very important interests of future genera-
tions; nor would it, on reflection, show that societies could effectively and
acceptably be guided by human rights across generations. After all, World
War II is not that many generations ago, and it is to be seen whether Western
European societies, even if one were to take a relatively favourable view of how
they have been guided by human rights since World War II, will remain so
guided.13 Perhaps the past 75 years have just been a lull in history.

An alternative approach
In short, an alternative approach is needed in order to get clear about whether
human rights can effectively be realized in societies worldwide. A very promis-
ing one would be to look for robust empirical evidence. To be sure, this would
not be evidence that shows that human rights have been realized effectively, etc.
worldwide, for they have not been. Rather, it would be evidence that elucidated
the conditions under which societies, and their institutions and individuals, could
actually function and behave in accordance with human rights (effectively,
acceptably and across generations). For institutions, this is an exceedingly
complex and multifaceted task, which is too large for this chapter. Instead, I will
concentrate on individuals. Furthermore, ideally one needs robust evidence, that
is, evidence which transcends, so to speak, single investigations and research
methods and establishes a record that remains constant through many different
investigations and research methods. To provide such a record would, however,
again be a huge undertaking and here I can only, by way of a relatively well-
supported hypothesis, give an indication of where one may end up.
Let me recall and elaborate a bit on what a society would broadly look like
that is guided by human rights effectively, acceptably and across generations,
and what the tasks of individuals in such a society would be. In such a society,
there are institutional guarantees that official, and other, violations of human
rights and lack of their realization (also through a lack of adequate resources)
 The question of motivation  101
will not occur. There are also institutional mechanisms in place (juridical, social
and political) to adequately react to the single violations that do occur. And
guidance by human rights is not achieved through methods that violate plausible
standards of social justice (fair procedures or, say, a modicum of equality of rel-
evant opportunities) or other common ethical standards (for example, that
people can understand themselves as acting for reasons). In order to maintain
such a society, individual members of it will need, first, not to violate human
rights themselves and, second, to do their fair part in the functioning of a socie-
ty’s human rights realizing institutions, and also in supporting and defending
these institutions where needed – where it could turn out, as will become clear,
that this fair part is not much more than not actively violating human rights.
The presupposition in what follows will be that, whenever individual members
of a society act to maintain a human rights realizing society and its institutions,
this will ultimately be sufficient to in fact maintain it. This is not to deny that there
can be coordination problems and instances where individual good intentions
translate into bad collective outcomes; nor that there can, for instance, be a lack of
good ideas or other resources in order to actually translate the (more active or
more passive) support of individuals into actual human rights realizing institu-
tions. But I will assume that such problems can over time be overcome.14 Con-
versely, it will also be assumed that individual motivations to maintain a human
rights society are necessary for maintaining it; in the absence of these motivations,
such a society will over time not be sustainable. It is against this background – of
individual motivation being necessary and, in the end, also sufficient for maintain-
ing a human rights realizing society – that this chapter focuses on individuals.
I will make a couple of general background assumptions about the motivation
of individual people. The first is that they are neither saints nor devils.15 That is
to say, they are neither completely selfless and altruistic nor always relentlessly
seeking their own interest (in a definite, hard sense) at the expense of others.
Second, their motivations are considerably flexible, depending on the social and cul-
tural contexts at hand, the varying hardships of their circumstances and the
behaviour of others around them. These assumptions seem empirically defensible –
given, for example, the criticisms that a ‘die hard’ homo oeconomicus model of
human behaviour has received, and given the evidence assembled by social scien-
tists, among others, about cultural differences in individual behaviour.16 With
these general assumptions in the background, I will now propose an empirical
hypothesis as to when individuals will be motivated to act in accordance with
human rights.

6.2 What motivates individuals to act in

accordance with human rights?
Rorty’s hypothesis
In developing my empirical hypothesis, I want to start from a remark that
Richard Rorty makes in a well-known essay, and explain what I find strong and
102  Getting to realization
not so strong about this remark, and why. Rorty states that ‘[p]roducing genera-
tions of nice, tolerant, well-off, secure, other-respecting students … in all parts
of the world is just what is needed – indeed, all that is needed – to achieve an
Enlightenment utopia’.17 I will read this remark as a hypothesis, saying (whether
Rorty has in mind exactly this can for the present purposes remain open) that
people will be motivated to behave in accordance with human rights if they are
economically well-off (so do not need to worry about having enough to eat,
etc.), secure (so do not need to worry about being killed or wounded, etc.) and
well-educated (which may statistically influence the degree to which they feel
threatened by people who lead their lives in ways differing from their own). And
we may suppose, in line with what was said above, that people will not only be
motivated to act in accordance with human rights if these conditions are ful-
filled; but also, that human rights will be realized in societies – that is what
Rorty’s ‘enlightenment utopia’ is about – if there are nice, tolerant, etc. people
in them.

Amending Rorty
Rorty’s hypothesis will now be amended in a number of ways. This will make
clearer what may be the thrust of that hypothesis. Rorty will then be further
­criticized – and, in a sense, also endorsed – with regard to the scope that he sug-
gests for his hypothesis. In amending Rorty, I want to start from a recent article
by Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell, in which they outline the conditions for
moral progress.18 As I read them, they understand moral progress in the more
particular sense of people developing an inclusivist morality, in which outsiders
have moral standing, and these people (the insiders) consequently have moral
concern for them, not only in word but also in deed.19 Going beyond Buchanan
and Powell, I’d say that such an inclusivist morality will usually accept that all
humans can legitimately claim, on their own behalf, that their very important
interests ought to be reliably protected. In any case, this seems a very minimal
form of inclusivism; I will come back to this shortly.
Now Buchanan and Powell base their argument on evolutionary theory but,
very importantly for the present purposes, they suggest that their hypotheses are
widely empirically supported. I am not sure to what extent this can really be
concluded on the basis of their article; but there is, as I want to put it, at least an
impression – even if not perhaps a watertight case – of widespread empirical
support.20
Buchanan and Powell hypothesize that an exclusivist (in the sense of a non-
inclusivist) morality will be prevalent when there are harsh conditions where
outsiders threaten the food supply or the health of group members, and also
threaten, inasmuch as functioning cooperative structures between different
groups do not exist, a group’s cooperative structures and cohesion. (Such harsh
conditions were, Buchanan and Powell say, conditions that were present for a
long time, namely in the age of hunter-gatherer societies.) Importantly, even if
there are not actually harsh conditions, but the members of a group think there
 The question of motivation  103
are, an exclusivist morality will still arise. An inclusivist morality will only
develop if conditions become much more favourable in the regards just men-
tioned and outsiders thus no longer pose a threat, or are no longer regarded as
posing one.21 I take it, in this context without further argument, that sufficient
conditions for a more inclusivist morality to be realized (which is what I take
Buchanan and Powell to be talking about) are equivalent to sufficient conditions
for a human rights realizing society to arise and be maintained.22
Going with the Buchanan–Powell account, Rorty’s emphasis on (basic) eco-
nomic well-being and security can be accepted. Furthermore, it should also be
the case, according to their account, that outsiders are not a threat, or perceived
as a threat, to the functioning of the group. And, I would make the addition that,
more generally, outsiders should not be (perceived as) a threat to the ability of
group members to develop and exercise their (relatively complex) key capacities
(by which I mean very important capacities such as cognitive, emotional and
creative capacities, as well as social ones: having standing among and vis-à-vis
others) to some reasonable extent.23 Now, while economic well-being and
security have (among other things) an important role in making sure that out-
siders do not actually pose a threat to the various things mentioned, education
may (among other things) be a mechanism that sometimes leads to outsiders not
being perceived as a threat to one’s group and oneself. Yet it is also plausible
that more is needed here; Buchanan and Powell mention, for instance, how
populist leaders can sometimes foster people’s perception of being threatened by
outsiders.24
In short, my own hypothesis – call it hypothesis HR – would be that when
people are secure and perceive themselves to be secure (1) in their very elemen-
tary interests being met (such as having enough to eat and having physical
security) as well as (2) in their being able to develop and exercise relatively
complex very important capacities to a reasonable extent (such as their cogni-
tive, emotional, creative and social capacities), they will support human rights.25
This is, to be sure, an empirical hypothesis, and the Buchanan–Powell article
suggests there may indeed be robust empirical support for it. More particularly –
and perhaps more modestly than Buchanan and Powell – I mean the hypothesis
only to apply to people’s non-engagement in human rights violations and to their
not offering active support to such violations by, for example, supporting polit-
ical parties that in certain ways want to curtail the fundamental rights of certain
groups in their society, or elsewhere on earth.26 In this respect, I now want to
criticize Rorty: he suggests that his hypothesis does more work than it actually
does.27 This criticism is relevant for hypothesis HR. However, where I will end
up, Rorty will in a sense still be endorsed, as will become clear.

Criticizing Rorty – and, in a sense, endorsing him

Rorty strongly suggests that ‘nice, tolerant, well-off, secure, other-respecting
students’ – a characterization that may usually be apt for university students in
Western Europe and in the USA – will act to actively help to sustain the human
104  Getting to realization
rights abiding institutions that already exist, and to make their societies more
human rights abiding where needed. According to Rorty, this includes, I take it,
that these students have appropriate regard for the human rights of people else-
where on earth, through non-violation and adequate assistance.28 After all, such
actions are what is needed for an ‘enlightenment utopia’: the maintenance of
human rights realizing societies (and the emergence of such societies, but that
concerns non-ideal theory, and therefore lies outside of the scope of the present
chapter). However, I believe that there is reason to doubt that such students, or
also people who meet the conditions specified in hypothesis HR, that is people
who are secure in their elementary interests being met and also in being able to
develop and exercise their key capacities to a reasonable extent, will act as Rorty
believes they will. Take as an example the decline of the labour movement, and
the fact that some of its legacy (good working conditions, not only in the sense
of wages and working hours, but also of many so-called secondary working con-
ditions, to do with pension and disability arrangements, holidays with pay,
health and safety issues) is in fact endangered – by temporary contracts, by the
fact that much work is done through recruitment agencies and by a reliance on
increasing numbers of ‘freelancers’ with tenuous pension arrangements, etc. (I
take the examples from the Netherlands.) This suggests that the roles of the
labour movement are not all being taken over by other institutions. Now, not
everything here is a matter of human rights, but some of it relates quite clearly to
such human rights as the right to work and the right to a decent living standard.
And, what seems to be happening is that, often, reliable human rights protection
(or something much like it) has become so self-evident that insufficient action is
taken by the highly educated, well-off, secure parts of the population to protect it
where it is in jeopardy.29
What people who are secure in their elementary and also more complex very
important interests will do,30 I suggested above – and this is still, I take it,
broadly in line with Rorty and can thus in some sense be read as endorsement
for him – is not actively undermine the very important interests of others, or the
reliable protection of these interests; and they will not support people who
undermine them, or institutions, over alternatives, where there are alternatives.
More concretely, they will not beat people up (and certainly not because of the
colour of their skin or sexual preference) or sabotage their fair trial, and they
will not support people or institutions who do such things. I should add that –
compatibly with the hypothesis – individuals could still support even active vio-
lation of human rights, or an institution which does that, if they are not aware
that it happens – or if, even though they are aware of it happening, they (are
brought to) believe that it is inevitable or that there are very good reasons for it.
This certainly complicates the hypothesis further.31

An addition to hypothesis HR
I want to suggest that, in order to realize human rights effectively (etc.), societies
(unsurprisingly) need, in addition to rather passive support from a great majority
 The question of motivation  105
of individual members, good institutions, with appropriate checks and balances
and adequate powers and capacities (both reactive and proactive). And they need
that such institutions are properly maintained and kept alive. This is something
that requires input from professionals, but also, at least, from a certain number
of very active citizens for whom doing this takes up many evenings, in line with
what Oscar Wilde said. An avant-garde of a limited number of very active and
committed citizens would, I think, suffice – in addition to a small avant-garde of
professionals.32 I will not go into the question here of how such an avant-garde
may be maintained – and come about – but I will just assume that this can
happen, and more easily so than it is to motivate all individual members of a
society (or at least a very large part of them) to a level of engagement that is
even considerably less. If there is a human rights realizing institutional framework
borne by such avant-gardes, then, according to hypothesis HR, the overwhelming
majority of a society’s people will prefer supporting that (rather passively
perhaps) to supporting endeavours – which there may always to some degree be,
even in ideal societies – to undermine it. I propose to call, for the case of indi-
viduals, supporting such a framework and not violating human rights: ‘acting in
accordance with human rights’. After all, such behaviour on the part of most
individual members of a society (excluding, on the one side, some avant-garde
citizens and professionals and, on the other side, some free riders and pathological
cases) would be enough action from their side to actually realize human rights in
such a society. (It is another question whether a fair division of moral labour would
not require them to do more; perhaps, but that goes beyond the motivational
question.33)

6.3 Some objections

The basic hypothesis proposed above (hypothesis HR) states that people will not
actively violate human rights, and that they will not undermine institutions and
people that realize human rights, when they are secure in their elementary inter-
ests being met and in there being opportunities for developing and exercising
their key capacities to a reasonable extent; or, rather, what matters is their per-
ception of this being so. Importantly, this hypothesis states sufficient conditions
for people actually acting in accordance with human rights, not necessary con-
ditions. This means at least two things. First, and generally, there may be other
ways to get people (in acceptable ways) actually to behave in accordance with
human rights; nothing in hypothesis HR excludes this, and a few alternatives
will be briefly explored below. Second, and more particularly, the hypothesis
does not imply that people for whom a number of very important interests, etc.
are not securely met cannot also behave in accordance with human rights.34 If
indeed they could not so behave, this would be quite tragic, for with many
people these interests, etc. actually are not always securely met. But the hypo-
thesis does not imply that they cannot.
So much for what the hypothesis does and does not say. I want now to con-
sider three objections: (1) hypothesis HR tells us when people will effectively
106  Getting to realization
behave in accordance with human rights, but what about the acceptability of this
behaviour, and its being capable of being reproduced across generations? (2) Is
it plausible after all that the hypothesis applies to the reliable protection of future
people’s very important interests? (3) Are there other plausible hypotheses
regarding individuals behaving in accordance with human rights effectively,
acceptably and across generations? (This third question could, in fact, result in
objections to the hypothesis investigated above, but it need not.)

Acceptability, and guidance by human rights across generations

Hypothesis HR regards it as jointly sufficient conditions for a society to be
effectively guided in accordance with human rights, that people’s very important
elementary interests are reliably met and that they can rely on being able to
develop and exercise their key capacities to a reasonable extent – and they need
to perceive this as such. (In addition, an ‘avant-garde’ would be needed of a
small part of a society’s members and of professionals.) But can these con-
ditions be met in a way that is also acceptable? Let me concentrate on two key
elements. First, that fulfilling the conditions specified by hypothesis HR does not
require that there be great injustices. Second, and this may well already be
included in the first part, but still I want to mention it expressly, that it is com-
patible with the conditions specified by HR that people regard themselves, and
are regarded by others, as acting for reasons. As for the first element, it brings
out a remarkable thing about the above conditions – specifically, that people
should be secure in their elementary important interests being fulfilled and being
able to develop and exercise their key capacities to some reasonable extent –
namely that the conditions are very close to the realization of human rights
itself.35 The good news in this is that the conditions are very unlikely, indeed
almost logically impossibly, in conflict with the fulfilment of human rights.36
The bad news is perhaps, at least at first sight, that the conditions tell us nothing
about how to get to a society acceptably guided by human rights. However, why,
on second thoughts, should they? Of course, ultimately one should get clear about
how to arrive at a society guided by human rights. But this, however essential it
is, is a question of non-ideal theory – more specifically of transformation – and,
as such, almost entirely beyond the scope of this chapter.37
The second element of acceptability is that the condition should not make it
impossible for people to regard themselves as acting for reasons – and also to be
regarded by others as such. To explain further, people should not be regarded
merely as ‘things’ on which things and other people have impacts and who then
behave in a certain way in response.38 To be sure, this is part of the story:
humans are of course part of the natural world of cause and effect; medicine
might cure an illness and, if you do not watch out when crossing the road, you
might run over by a car. But this is indeed only part of the story. And I do not
see why the hypothesis proposed commits one to saying that it is the entire
story. The hypothesis could allow that people are also beings who act for
reasons, and that people regard each other as such.39
 The question of motivation  107
After discussing two elements to do with whether hypothesis HR can make for
acceptable human rights realization, here is – briefly – one more such element,
namely whether this hypothesis can allow for a plurality of cultures and social
forms of life. The answer can be positive. To begin with, one should observe that,
if human rights are realized, something happens that is close to what hypothesis
HR envisages: people’s very important elementary interests are reliably protected
in a number of ways and certain safeguards are provided for them to be able to
develop and exercise their key capacities to some reasonable degree. Now, in addi-
tion, human rights can be claimed to be universally valid, which implies that all
societies should, if they are to be acceptable, realize human rights. And besides –
and this is the crucial point in the present context – it can also be claimed that the
validity and importance of the realization of human rights can be recognized from
a plurality of cultures and forms of life, that is, from a wide variety of back-
grounds.40 Thus, the fulfilment of the conditions that hypothesis HR envisages will
be compatible with a variety of cultures and forms of life as well.
Finally, hypothesis HR was about effective realization of human rights and I
have just been asking whether the realization it envisages would also be accept-
able. But what about the across-generations aspect? Does the hypothesis also
show that the realization of human rights can hold across generations? If most
members of a society only refrain from actively violating human rights, and the
only thing they do in addition is not undermining institutions, citizens and
professionals who are actively engaged in realizing human rights: is that enough
to keep a society reliably guided by human rights across generations? I think
that it follows directly from the hypothesis, indeed this is simply the content of
the hypothesis, that if indeed this much – not actively violating human rights,
etc. – is reproduced across generations, it is all that is needed.41
Yet the doubt is whether, if members of a society merely do not actively
violate human rights and the like, this is not, on closer inspection, too meagre to
allow for its own reproduction across generations. One may think that repro-
duction requires such activity as cannot be borne by an avant-garde alone:
parents have to tell their children, teachers their students and the background
culture of a society – the media, pub talk, birthday parties – has to convey
(mostly rather implicitly to be sure) that the realization of human rights is essen-
tial. Or, somewhat more modestly, it has to convey in any case a general sense
of what human rights are, and that some things count as violating human rights,
not realizing them, etc., and that such violations, etc. are not inevitable or hap-
pening for very good reasons.
In short, the reproduction of a suitable human rights discourse would be
needed, in families, schools and the background culture at large. And this goes
beyond the hypothesis: if people are secure in their very important elementary
interests being met, etc. – as the hypothesis deems necessary – they may still not
reproduce such a discourse. It would be good news if telling stories could be
enough, mainly stories perhaps (and alas) of abysses such as the Rwanda geno-
cide or the Holocaust – and, in addition, it may be needed that people strongly
interact in groups where such stories are told.42 The question is whether these
108  Getting to realization
stories, if coupled with interaction in groups, can become vivid enough to do the
job, for people whose human rights are reliably realized; and if so, how such
stories and groups can (arise and) stay around, and, if not, what other means
there might be. There are also questions as to what the role of an avant-garde
can be in all this, and what the limits of this role would be. But these questions
must remain open here.
I would like to add a worry about avant-gardes here – a worry that concerns
motivation across generations and acceptability at the same time. It is not so
much that the idea of avant-gardes, who may perhaps, in a less friendly nomen-
clature, also be called ‘elites’, could well in several ways be unattractive and
problematic, also morally. For example, seeing a role for avant-gardes could sit
uneasily (at least on the face of it) with the idea, so central to human rights, of
the fundamental equality of all human beings. However true and important this
may be, I leave it aside for now. Presently, the worry is rather whether a society
consisting of small avant-gardes and a rather passive majority can be stable.
Will the avant-garde not start serving its own interests, and in the process also
possibly undermine human rights? What is needed, in other words, is an account
of how one can prevent an avant-garde – even if one assumes it is well-intended
at the start – from getting derailed. One (partial) answer could be: there always
need to be (real opportunities for the emergence of) a ‘counter avant-garde’ to
the derailed one. People would then, according to hypothesis HR, support that
counter avant-garde, at least as long as their elementary interests were securely
met and as long as they had secure opportunities to reasonably develop their key
capacities. But would such a counter avant-garde arise and be able to assert
itself? For example, would the conditions specified by hypothesis HR not
already be undermined once an avant-garde started to derail?43 Perhaps, in ideal
circumstances (which we are talking about), an alternative avant-garde would be
able to assert itself: perhaps some persons would come forward from the people,
and would also be able to make sure (with the rather passive support of the rest
of the people) that the derailed avant-garde could not undermine people’s ele-
mentary interests, etc. being met.
In a somewhat similar vein, to prevent an avant-garde from derailing, certain
kinds of institutional checks-and-balances will in all likelihood be needed. An
important question about these is whether they will only work well over time if
they involve rather ambitious, say deliberative, democratic mechanisms of
certain sorts, and if the people are quite active. (One is reminded of Hannah
Arendt’s insistence that people make their own history and that history is not,
lest things go terribly wrong, to be left to politicians or scientists.44) But perhaps
this is not so, and it is enough that some persons from the people come forward
and form a counter avant-garde, which could perhaps be very vigorous.
However, if more active involvement from the people is needed, hypothesis HR
does not tell us how to get it, and one may have to look further into how to bring
about democratic engagement. In short, then, the general problem of how to
prevent an avant-garde from derailing, even if it is originally well-intentioned,
will require further attention.
 The question of motivation  109
Intergenerational aspects of human rights
As has been emphasized in Chapter 5 above, human rights have to take inter-
ests of future people into account, and the reliable protection of those interests.
Yet, looking at, for instance, how hard it is to move people and societies into
action to mitigate climate change, one may wonder whether hypothesis HR
can really include the aspects of human rights that concern future people. If
people’s very important interests are reliably protected, etc., will they then
indeed refrain from actively violating the very important interests of future
people? And will they refrain from undermining institutions and people who
aim to protect the interests of future people? I’d say that they will. That is,
they will refrain from undermining future people’s human rights as long as it
is conspicuous to them that these human rights are being violated or that one
set of institutions etc. realizes them clearly better than another set does. Con-
spicuousness then has at least two aspects. First, people should know that
certain things are happening and second, they should frame these things as
human rights violations or a certain degree of (lack of) realization of human
rights, which happen to real people – and future people being ‘future’ may
make it harder to genuinely perceive them as real (a bit like indirectness in
global settings may make perceptions of realness harder).45 For instance,
suppose that people do not know that certain forms of unequal treatment (to
take a vivid example: of LGBTs) are happening, or that they do not frame
these forms of unequal treatment as a violation or a lack of realization of
human rights. Then, it seems to me that they might, compatibly with hypo-
thesis HR, actively engage in these forms of unequal treatment, and that they
may support institutions and people who let them persist and who may also
more generally do badly at realizing human rights. The consequence is that, if
there is a lack of conspicuousness, the hypothesis is, in the end, not applicable:
there may still be individual motivation, or not; but the hypothesis ends up
being silent about that.
Now, with the protection of the very important interests of future people there
could very easily be a lack of conspicuousness: people currently alive may fail
to know that future people’s interests are affected (due, for instance, to all the
uncertainties involved), and they may fail to frame things as a lack of human
rights realization, for example because future people are usually quite literally
out of sight.46 It will be important, then, to achieve conspicuousness and an
appropriate framing. The means to do so may be the same as those that could
keep a human rights culture alive in families, at schools and in the media, etc.:
telling stories (and related forms of enhancing awareness) and doing so in
groups in which people are strongly interacting.
Whether this can in fact be achieved I do not know. The prospects in our
current situation, where there is so little action taken against climate change, are
not encouraging. But in this chapter – except briefly in the conclusion – I am
considering ideal situations, where the circumstances are the best, given human
beings as they are; and things may be more hopeful there.
110  Getting to realization
Other hypotheses
Above, hypothesis HR and some additions to it have been discussed. Now, I want
briefly to mention some other relatively well-supported hypotheses.47 These hypo-
theses may offer supplements to hypothesis HR or, where relatively well-­
supported and not (fully) compatible with it, potential criticisms and modifications
of it – to be investigated further if hypothesis HR is also well-supported.48
First, some psychological mechanisms can be used (by appropriate agents) to
effectively move people into action. For example, people want to avoid cognitive
dissonance, that is to say, the unease experienced because of a perceived tension
between different beliefs or different actions of theirs, or between their beliefs
and actions.49 For example, suppose they view themselves as caring for the
environment and think that this implies recycling certain kinds of waste, while
they do not behave accordingly. Then, they could either make themselves
believe that they do, in some sense, so behave after all. Or they could tell them-
selves that they have a very good excuse for not doing this, so that they may still
be generally environmentally friendly and not recycle. Or they could consider
that being environmentally friendly does not really require recycling waste, etc.
Or, importantly for the present chapter, they could change their behaviour and
start recycling waste. All of these are ways in which to resolve the perceived
tension and, thus, to get rid of the unease, and it is imaginable that the psycho-
logical mechanism of cognitive dissonance could be put to use to move people
who already hold certain beliefs to actually behave in accordance with human
rights.
The same is true for nudging, presently a very popular notion. There are
various different ways to articulate what nudging is.50 Here, I will understand it
as changing someone’s choice environment with the intention that she will be
more likely to make certain choices rather than others, and where this is
achieved neither by appealing directly to her being a conscious chooser who
chooses for reasons nor by bypassing her conscious choice altogether. Rather, it
is achieved by doing something in between (something which, in addition,
employs other means than coercion or altering economic incentives). For
example, it is achieved by placing the apples in the supermarket where they are
more likely to catch the eye (rather than the sweets), and likewise for the stairs
in the hallway (rather than the elevator). And, it is not achieved by, on the one
hand, telling people that it is healthier to eat the apples or by, on the other hand,
exposing them to (say) subconscious advertisements sending a message about
how delicious and healthy apples are. Nudging is thus in a grey zone between
appealing to someone’s autonomous choice and bypassing it altogether, and one
of the most important things to do in order to further understand the (different
varieties of the) concept and how to evaluate it would be to develop further what
this grey zone looks like and where exactly nudging is in it.
To discuss this further is beyond the present scope. But, depending on how it
turns out, realizing human rights by nudging may or may not be acceptable.
Going for the moment with the examples of the apples and the stairs, it seems to
 The question of motivation  111
me that there will at least be some forms of nudging – namely, among other
things, those in these examples – that seem acceptable and that do not seem to
bypass someone’s acting for reasons too much. What should also come into the
picture here, evidently, is who does the nudging and what it tries to achieve. As
for the first question, a democratically elected government, held to a constitution
guaranteeing fundamental rights and freedoms, may be a good candidate, and
perhaps the only acceptable candidate to engage in nudging.51 At the same time –
and concerning the question of what subject matters and goals are concerned – it is
not so difficult to think of forms of nudging that seem clearly unacceptable, also
when done by a democratic government. Here one may, for example, think of
nudges where certain rights are infringed, such as nudging people to vote for a
green party or to adhere to one (comprehensive) worldview rather than another.
By contrast, nudging people to act in accordance with human rights may not, as
such, seem similarly problematic.52 But it does have to abide by certain con-
straints. For example, people should remain in a position to understand themselves
as acting for reasons.
Finally, let me discuss one more motivational hypothesis, which I will call
the self-interest hypothesis. It says that, whenever it is in people’s self-interest to
do their part in maintaining a society where human rights are reliably realized,
they will do so.53 Self-interest should be understood in some definite way here
and not be so broad as to basically mean anything. This hypothesis, it should be
noted, is different from hypothesis HR, where the idea was (most importantly)
that people will, if their very important elementary interests are reliably met and
if they can rely on being able to develop and exercise their key capacities to
some reasonable extent, not violate human rights and also refrain from under-
mining institutions and people that realize human rights. By contrast, the
­hypothesis that we are presently considering says that people will refrain from
violating human rights, and from undermining the realization of human rights, if
it is in their interest to refrain from all this. It has indeed been defended that
having human rights reliably realized is generally in people’s interest.54 It has
likewise been defended that people do act so as to further their own interests –
economists, for one, often defend this. However, there have also been many crit-
icisms of the idea of the homo oeconomicus (the idea that human beings always
act so as to promote their self-interest);55 and it is also a question whether one
should not rather say that people act on their perceived interests.
However this may be, it does seem plausible that people sometimes act so as
to further their own interests, or perhaps rather their perceived interests. And it
also seems the case that it is often in people’s interests to have a society where
human rights are reliably realized, and that they frequently understand this
well.56 So, self-interest as a motivator for people to actually act in accordance
with human rights retains importance, and it could also help, it seems, to main-
tain human rights realization over time and across generations.57
Nor need it be unacceptable for people to be acting to uphold a human rights
realizing society because doing so is in their interest, rather than because such a
society is just. For one thing, the interest hypothesis just described states, as I
112  Getting to realization
understand it, that people behave in ways that further their interests, but not
necessarily that they always consciously and intentionally act to do this. Where
they behave unconsciously, saying that they behave to further their interests
seems no more objectionable than saying, for example, that they behave in
certain ways because they are secure or have a certain genetic set-up. Further-
more, is it necessarily problematic if people consciously and intentionally act so
as to further their interests? I would say not. In any case, it seems to be too
narrow to hold that people’s reasons for upholding and furthering human rights
can only be acceptable if they are moral reasons; that could then also exclude,
depending on how exactly ‘moral’ is understood, actions brought about on
account of stories or, say, certain religious ideas. Thus, the possibility is left
open that acting in accordance with human rights for self-interested reasons, too,
will remain both a plausible and an acceptable part of the answer to the motiva-
tional question.

6.4 To conclude
This chapter has proposed a hypothesis as to when individuals will – at least –
not actively violate human rights, and will refrain from hampering institutions
and people that realize human rights. This hypothesis says that people’s very
important interests (such as having enough to eat) should be – and be seen by
them as – securely met and they should reliably be able to develop and exercise
their key capacities (such as their cognitive and creative capacities) to a reason-
able degree. When formulating this hypothesis, I have regarded it as a necessary
and, ultimately, also a sufficient condition for a society to be able to realize
human rights that individuals are motivated to do their part in realizing them.
This part might scarcely be more than not actively undermining human rights –
provided that some important additions are made, concerning the presence of an
avant-garde and concerning the stories and group interactions needed to repro-
duce even quite passive support among individuals for human rights.58
Furthermore, in addition to proposing this hypothesis about what actually
moves individuals to behave in accordance with human rights effectively and
across generations, the chapter has also argued that this individual motivation
could be achieved in acceptable ways. This includes, obviously, that human
rights realization is not jeopardized, but also that people can understand them-
selves (and be understood by others) as acting for reasons. Moreover, it has been
argued that the motivational hypothesis proposed can also work when we are
talking about the interests of future people and the reliable protection of those
interests.
In the end, then, the chapter has been relatively optimistic. Yet a few
important points have remained to an extent unascertained, for example some
points to do with the question of how to reproduce across generations that a
society’s members do – at least – not violate human rights actively, and rather
passively endorse institutions and people that uphold human rights. Also,
important doubts may remain about the role of an avant-garde of citizens and
 The question of motivation  113
professionals in this chapter’s hypothetical account. Bringing an avant-garde in
may be deemed to be objectionably elitist or even to undermine the equal stand-
ing of all persons.59 Such doubts may perhaps be answered, but they would need
more investigation. Moreover, how can one be sure that an elite would work to
further human rights rather than to undermine them? Perhaps (real opportunities
for the emergence and maintenance of) a ‘counter avant-garde’ would be needed
here. But the minimum that would be needed is a well-functioning system of
appropriate checks and balances, and it is an open question to what extent these
would end up requiring a more active engagement on the part of the citizenry at
large after all. If they did end up doing that, the motivational requirements on
individuals would be more elaborate than suggested in the present chapter, and
the conclusion to be drawn about the motivational question may have to be more
pessimistic.
Another limitation of the present chapter is that it has engaged with ideal
theory only, that is, with societies with the best institutions and arrangements
there can be, given human beings as they are. If, even in ideal circumstances,
human rights cannot be realized effectively, acceptably and across generations,
they are certainly not appropriate as minimum standards of global justice.
Besides, ideal theory is sometimes relevant in deciding how to go forward here
and now. Yet evidently, a focus on ideal theory has its limitations. It is certainly
a vital question how our world – with its widespread deprivation, conflict,
dictatorships, aggressive behaviour by states, etc. – can with considerable speed
make a transition to something much closer to the universal realization of human
rights. And this transition should also happen in acceptable ways and have due
regard for the very important interests of future people.
Now, I think that the motivational hypotheses proposed in this chapter could
be of use for thinking about such a transition as well. If it could be ensured, as a
start, that certain people’s very important interests are reliably met and that their
key capacities can be reliably developed and exercised to some reasonable
extent, this could in some cases bring about virtuous cycles of support for
human rights. Besides, the chapter may also provide a starting point for further
investigating how certain kinds of group associations and the emergence or
strengthening of certain kinds of avant-gardes – all of which should of course be
brought about in an acceptable way – could contribute to progress in the realiza-
tion of human rights. These are just some examples: non-ideal theory can come
in very many kinds, depending on the place and timeframe one is talking about
and, more generally, on the characteristics of the world which one (provision-
ally) takes as a given.60 The present chapter has not aimed even to begin to chart
all this; that will be for another time.

Notes
1 Or, as I shall also say synonymously, can societies worldwide be effectively guided
by human rights? (see also note 5 below) By speaking of ‘societies worldwide’, I do
not mean already to decide the question of whether a global order should consist of
largely sovereign states or be built upon, say, a suitable idea of subsidiarity.
114  Getting to realization
2 Cf. Rawls (1999b), p. 7. According to Rawls, an ideal situation would also be one
where there would be no problems arising because of non-compliance and great scar-
city. But I think this should not be prejudged by making it part of the definition of
what an ideal situation is.
3 More explanation will follow. In Rawlsian terminology, the last requirement concerns
stability (Rawls 1999a, p. 6).
4 This chapter will sometimes be looking at real-world human rights regimes. Yet I
take it that these regimes (in their lists of particular human rights, in being about the
protection of the important interests of broad categories of people everywhere and
always, etc.) are sufficiently in line with this book’s conception of human rights to
provide an indication as to whether this conception could motivate, in the sense of
effectively guiding societies.
5 ‘Guidance by human rights’ should not be taken so literally that individuals and insti-
tutions are moved by human rights per se (whatever that may mean), but only that
individuals and institutions should be brought to act in accordance with what human
rights require – which, for individuals, would mean that they are moved to do their
part in institutions that realize human rights, on a plausible specification of what their
part is. Cf. also Ch. 2, note 36.
6 See Section 6.1 for a somewhat more precise and elaborate characterization of all
this. I will not pursue the question here of what adequate resources are. Cf. Ch. 4
above.
7 Cf. Judt (2010, p. 164), who emphasizes that citizens’ engagement should not be con-
fined to matters relating to human rights.
8 This condition may also be specified in a relatively weak sense, for example in a suit-
ably counterfactual one.
9 Pace Sen (2009). That human rights would be a suitable minimum account of ideal
global justice does not, it is true, imply that they will be so in all non-ideal circum-
stances. But it does generally mean, I take it, that states, etc. should work towards full
human rights realization.
10 Of course, it is not plausible that Western Europe after WWII can exemplify ideal
theory. But if effective, acceptable guidance of societies in accordance with human
rights were possible in clearly non-ideal circumstances, this would, in certain ways,
be helpful and also encouraging to know.
11 This point would of course need much more discussion, which must await another
occasion. Let me only remark here that the Dublin Regulation, which, incidentally, is
hard to defend by any plausible standard of fair shares regarding the admission of
refugees, only requires many Western European countries to take in very few
refugees.
12 See Pogge (2008, 2005).
13 I thank Bernard Verlaan for pressing this point.
14 The ‘sufficient’ may come under discussion when, later in the chapter, it appears that,
above all, rather minimal motivation of many individuals is plausibly achievable –
even though the chapter does not strictly exclude that more could also be achieved.
15 Loosely inspired by Immanuel Kant who, to be sure in a very different vein, thought
(in his 1795 treatise Zum ewigen Frieden [Perpetual Peace], first supplement) that
one could sometimes even get somewhere with a ‘nation of devils’.
16 See, for a few examples from very many possible ones, Polanyi (1944); Sen (2009);
Heine (2012).
17 Rorty (1994), p. 127.
18 Buchanan and Powell (2016). Thanks to Hanno Sauer for bringing this text to my
attention.
19 Ibid., e.g. pp. 986ff., p. 997, p. 1009.
20 Ibid., e.g. p. 989, pp. 995f., pp. 1012f.
 The question of motivation  115
21 Buchanan and Powell are clear that people can still perceive threats even if they are
not actually there. It could, I think, potentially also be the other way around: they per-
ceive no threats where there are. But this perhaps less likely, especially in the longer
run. (Note that Buchanan and Powell draw on evolutionary theory.)
22 An inclusivist morality, as I understand it, pays much attention to the interests of out-
siders. Human rights, too, have the (reliable) protection of (very important) interests
at their heart, with a strong idea of the equal status of all humans. They, thus, form a
very inclusivist normative framework. Whether Buchanan and Powell’s motivational
hypothesis would show us how to go all the way to realizing human rights would
need further discussion – in addition to them being perhaps slightly more cautious
about outlining sufficient conditions. For now, I just want to observe that we would
get, in important respects, close. About insiders and outsiders, also see the next
footnote.
23 Cf. Maslow (1954) and Nussbaum (2000, pp. 78–80) – whose lists have a very
different status and very different functions from what I (very freely) use them for
here. I will make no attempt to define or further to specify ‘key capacities’ or ‘reason-
able extent’; the account only aims to provide a first direction.
The addition of more complex interests goes beyond Buchanan and Powell –
although it keeps thinking in terms of important interests having to be met. This addi-
tion has the effect of being more, rather than less, strict when thinking about what
may be required (as a sufficient condition, as one may say in the line of Buchanan
and Powell) for individuals to be motivated to act in accordance with human rights.
Thus, if there is robust empirical evidence for Buchanan and Powell’s hypothesis, this
will remain so for my stricter hypothesis.
Of course, in a highly differentiated social order, people will be part of several
groups. Talk of in- and outsiders will consequently need to be made more complex –
but it will not become obsolete. Sometimes insider vs. outsider distinctions will be
clearer than in other cases. And sometimes, the outsiders will be within the same
society, for example if one is talking about a society with deep ethnic or class con-
flicts; whereas sometimes they will be beyond a society or state. The addition that they
may be beyond a society or state – i.e. global – is necessary for two reasons. First, it
remains, to a degree, a moot point to what extent an ideal world would be largely
state-centred or in a sense more globalized. Second, also in a largely state-centred
world, human rights realization will imply certain duties (negative ones, etc.) of a state
and its citizen towards those beyond one’s own citizens/state. In any case, in the
context of this chapter, I will regard the viability of an outsider-friendly morality as
sufficient for the viability of global human rights realization.
24 Of course, one can ask the further question of when such leaders are more or less
likely to get their way. This must to a large extent remain beyond the scope of the
present chapter. An important line to pursue is that people will often do – although
certainly not mechanically– what others in the groups relevant to them do (cf.
Lichtenberg 2014, Ch. 6). This mechanism (which may loosely be called Durkheimian)
can be used for good and bad, and it needs further investigation how it is best dealt
with in specific cases, e.g. when it is or is not a good idea to stimulate that individuals
engage more with particular groups.
25 That is to say, of everyone, also of outsiders. Thus, the hypothesis opens up the
possibility that less may be needed for people to be motivated to realize the human
rights of their group members.
   When I speak of more complex capacities – where it may also be called an interest to
develop these – vs. more elementary interests, there is no elaborate theory underlying
this, although it has Maslowian resonances. Rather, I only want to signal that some
interests are relatively straightforward (such as the need for fresh air), while others
are decidedly less so (such as an interest in receiving social recognition) – with a
whole lot in between.
116  Getting to realization
26 As already remarked (see Ch. 2, note 36), according to some theories (cf. Pogge 2008),
individuals cannot violate human rights, but only governments and some other insti-
tutions can. However, I build here on the conception of human rights developed in
Ch. 2, where there are various potential duty bearers with regard to human rights,
including individuals, and thus various parties that can actively violate human rights.
27 I have other problems with Rorty’s text as well (for example, that he seems scarcely
aware that he is formulating a largely empirical hypothesis), but leave these aside
here.
28 I express this point as if the world were state-centred. However, the point could
­certainly be adapted to a non-state-centred world.
29 For a poignant diagnosis that reaches somewhat similar, but more severe, conclu-
sions, see Judt (2010). One could also give examples of inaction, and often indiffer-
ence, in the face of egregious human rights violations abroad (for many people this
would e.g. be in Burma or Yemen).
30 Nothing in what follows depends on there being some exceptions, some pathological
cases perhaps, as long as what follows is true for the overwhelming majority of
people who are secure in their elementary and, also, in their more complex very
important interests being met.
31 This is in line with Buchanan and Powell’s account, which, more generally, refers to
common psychological biases and socio-epistemic practices (2016, p. 1004ff.). The
hope might be that security in meeting very important interests and being able to
develop and exercise key capacities to some reasonable degree will also make for
moral systems that are more perceptive with regard to the non-realization of human
rights, as well as making talk of ‘inevitability’ and ‘good reasons’ regarding the non-
realization of human rights (also when abroad) less prevalent and convincing. The
account of stories, etc. that will be discussed below (in the context of reproducing rel-
evant human rights motivation across generations) is also pertinent here.
32 For thoughts about an avant-garde, see e.g. Ypi (2012). I will come back to the disad-
vantages and, indeed, dangers that may be associated with it (and which may be more
readily visible if one calls it an ‘elite’); cf. Buchanan and Powell (2016), pp. 1013f.
33 But fairness, or rather a perception of fairness, could easily come into motivational
territory if it is correct – which may well be the case – that people are only willing to
participate in social arrangements where they regard the contribution asked of them
as fair and regard what others have to do as fair as well; and where they perceive
most others as actually doing their fair share. This matter would have to be con-
sidered, among other things, when discussing how an avant-garde of citizens and
professionals could be maintained.
34 Although Buchanan and Powell’s hypothesis seems to go in this direction much more.
35 Importantly, the inclusion of more complex interests already implies, to my mind,
that the emphasis should generally be on real freedoms rather than on just providing
people with things regardless of what they want. Of course, realizing human rights
can only provide the social background for securely meeting important interests and
even more so for reliably being able to develop and exercise key capacities. So,
human rights realization is not enough, but it is generally needed.
36 Concerning people’s perceptions, things could be different.
37 However, there are a few remarks about transformation in the chapter’s conclusion.
38 And see also pp. 98–99 above.
39 One could elaborate on this by showing how the hypothesis could be compatible with
a plausible metaphysics. Cf. Van Miltenburg (2015), Nagel (2012). It can incidentally
be noted that, in the social sciences, ideas are often thought of as possible explana-
tions of behaviour, e.g. in traditions inspired by Max Weber (1979), etc. – and some-
times ideas in combination with other mechanisms such as group interaction. But this
passes over the (metaphysical or close to metaphysical) question of whether one can
coherently think this.
 The question of motivation  117
40 Cf. Section 3.1. See that section as well for a defence of the universal validity of
human rights. Now, it may admittedly be possible that something is valid yet need
not, or even ought not, to be accepted at some places or times (e.g. for some prag-
matic reason). But the universal validity of human rights – which is meant in an all-
things-considered way – hinges on the universal importance of the interests con-
cerned, in combination with suitable duty bearers being available everywhere and
always. It is hard to see why universal validity that is grounded in this way does not
bring with it the thought that all societies ought, certainly in ideal circumstances and
generally also in non-ideal circumstances, also in fact be guided by human rights.
41 In addition to there being, in all generations, a suitable avant-garde. Some more about
it in a moment – although I will not elaborate on how it could be reproduced.
42 One might call this a Durkheim-inspired thought (cf. Durkheim 1967). Of course,
what I say here about reproduction extends to the present generation as well: they,
too, will need stories and interaction in suitable groups.
43 If so, that could obviously be problematic, even if – as argued above – hypothesis HR
should be read as specifying sufficient rather than necessary conditions for individual
motivation to act in accordance with human rights.
44 See Arendt (1958); Young’s (2011) ‘social connection model’ puts emphasis on a
number of points that are rather similar.
45 This may, in a sense, also get us back to the ‘non-existence problem’ (Ch. 5, note 1).
46 This will also apply, of course, to certain other human rights violations (and other
instances of a lack of realization of human rights), which do not concern future
people.
47 Cf. Lichtenberg (2014) for an overview of a number of them.
48 For example, suppose that it turns out that, while hypothesis HR is met, people still
do not offer (certain kinds of) support for realizing human rights. Then the self-interest
hypothesis (discussed below) may have to offer supplements or modifications of
hypothesis HR. Similarly, a condition may need to be added to hypothesis HR about
people not being nudged in certain directions. However, I do not think that such addi-
tions and modifications are typically practically very important – although this would
require further research. For example, hypothesis HR may well involve self-interest
in the most important ways, and is naturally read as presupposing the absence of
certain kinds of subconscious (etc.) steering.
49 Cf. Vaidis (2014), and the original study by Festinger (1957).
50 Richard Thaler and Cas Sunstein (2008, p. 6), who made the term prominent as a
technical one, say that
a nudge … is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in
a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their
economic incentives. To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and
cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates. Putting fruit at eye level counts as a
nudge. Banning junk food does not.
Usually – but not in the context of the present chapter – nudges are self-regarding:
they want to achieve an outcome that a person herself desires, or that at least is
somehow better for her.
51 This evidently raises a question about when such a government will itself be motiv-
ated to nudge (or also to act in different ways).
52 What exactly ‘in accordance’ with human rights is, was clear for hypothesis HR, but
would need to be discussed again for the alternative hypotheses. This is beyond the
present scope.
53 In the present context, it is not important to go further into what doing one’s part is.
54 Cf. Nickel (2007), Ch. 4.
55 For one classic example (among many), see Sen (1977).
118  Getting to realization
56 Of course, an elaborate account ought to take collective action problems into account
here, and this may have to give the argument a twist, in certain contexts at least, in
the direction of fairness. To further elaborate on this is beyond the present scope.
57 How far one gets with furthering the interests of future generations if present
people act on their (perceived) self-interest is a related, and disputed, question.
Cf. Birnbacher (2015).
58 I should add that the background assumption, or at least hope, has been that ideal cir-
cumstances are favourable enough to allow for the reliable protection of all very
important interests of all human beings.
59 In addition and relatedly, human rights comprise, for one thing, certain political and
democratic rights, and certain roles for an avant-garde could run counter to these
rights and hence make for unacceptable forms of motivation.
60 Non-ideal theory, as before, in the sense of theory that takes certain characteristics of
the world (provisionally) as a given, even if these characteristics would not be there
in an ideal situation.
7 Conclusion

This book has engaged with two challenges to human rights in the 21st century,
which I have called the challenge of global inequality and the challenge of
future people. The book has also, third, discussed the motivational question.
First, the challenge of global inequality has asked whether one can be sin-
cerely committed to human rights as a global ideal, even if there exist great
global inequalities in human rights protection; and if these inequalities are, fur-
thermore, connected to structures (namely, to a world order of largely sovereign
states) to which one is also committed. Or would a commitment to human rights
be too easy here, and could it indeed be deemed hypocritical? Doesn’t either the
commitment to a world order of largely sovereign states, or else the commitment
to human rights, have to be abandoned? (This challenge is clearly very relevant in
our own world, with its huge global inequalities; but it will likely be relevant
also in an ideal world.)
Second, the challenge of future people, obviously relevant in the current times
of climate change, but also in an ideal world, deals with how to include the claims
of future people in human rights, especially given uncertainties – concerning,
among other things, the threats they will face and what will protect them against
these threats. Furthermore, questions about including future people in human
rights will raise problems of when to prioritize the future or the present and,
more generally, of how to set priorities among human rights.
Finally, the motivational question asks whether human rights can be effectively
realized in societies worldwide, in acceptable ways, and also across generations.
If they cannot, not even in ideal societies, that may raise serious issues about the
suitability of human rights as a global moral ideal.1
The book has, in addition (in Chapter 3), also discussed a couple of common and
influential more radical challenges,2 which I have dubbed the relativist challenge –
which says that human rights are not universally valid – and the political pawns
­challenge – which says that human rights are merely pawns in political power games.
There is, I have argued, good news for human rights inasmuch as the two
central challenges just mentioned, and also the motivational question and the
two more radical challenges, can be answered. Thus, I have offered a relatively
upbeat assessment of human rights as a moral ideal for the world – or, somewhat
more technically, as specifying the minimum requirements of global justice.3
120  Conclusion
I will now recapitulate how the three issues that have been central to the
book – and, to begin with, also the relativist and political pawns challenges –
have been replied to.
As for the more radical challenges to human rights, the relativist challenge
and the political pawns challenge, it has been argued in Chapter 3 that they can
be answered, in the versions of them that matter most. At an abstract level, at
least, human rights are universally valid. And, although there may be political
abuse of human rights, this is not the whole story, but the picture is mixed. Fur-
thermore, alternatives are unlikely to do better, and local repairs to human rights
can be made on an ongoing basis.
Subsequently, I have, in Chapter 4, discussed the challenge of global
inequality. I have argued that an ideal world order could plausibly be one of
largely sovereign states and to an extent, but for now only to an extent, one
based on subsidiarity (that is, where everything is organized at the lowest level
where it can still be done in a just way). If so, some global inequalities in human
rights protection may be inevitable and, thus, not at odds with a good-faith com-
mitment to human rights. Yet it is important that these inequalities are, so to
speak, residual cases; equality of protection – in the sense of people receiving
the same protection of a very important interest if their need for protection is the
same – should be provided unless there are very good reasons why it need not.
Concerning the challenge of future people, a beginning formal framework has
been proposed for how to set priorities among human rights, and climate change
has been the main case in Chapter 5 to help show how this framework may func-
tion. The framework that is to be used, after an initial adjudication as to which
claims are to enter into the priority-setting exercise in the first place, consists
of certain side constraints (ways in which priorities may not be set) as well as
a number of more positive principles. These positive principles have a non-
utilitarian flavour, although the number of people involved and the opportunity
cost of providing a protection are also relevant considerations – among other
considerations, such as the importance of the interests at issue, how much they
are threatened and how much a certain protection helps against a certain
threat. The framework also includes a suggestion for how to deal with genuine
uncertainties about threats and protections, that is to say, with cases where no
approximate probabilities about threats and protections are known. This sug-
gestion is to visualize, by putting a number on it, the order of magnitude of the
chance at hand. In order to think of uncertainties neither too highly nor too
lowly when setting priorities among human rights, working with an appro-
priate visualization may well be better than just saying that we do not, even
approximately, know the chance.
As for the motivational question, I have (exploratively) suggested in Chapter 6
that when people are – and regard themselves as – secure in their more elemen-
tary very important interests being met and in having the opportunity to develop
and exercise their key capacities to a reasonable extent, they will in certain ways
act to uphold a human rights realizing society. They will refrain from actively
violating human rights, and they will support institutions and people that realize
 Conclusion  121
human rights. This may also be enough to uphold a human rights realizing
society across generations, at least if there is an avant-garde of professionals and
of a number of citizens, and if there are mechanisms for passing down – for
example, through stories told at schools and in other groups – a minimal under-
standing of human rights.
All of this results in a rather favourable picture, in which universally valid
human rights, although they are emphatically in need of local repairs on a con-
tinuous basis, are a global moral ideal that can be sincerely upheld in the face
of global inequalities, that can include future people, and that can actually
move people and societies to behave and to function in accordance with it. In
other words, human rights as a global ideal can be actualized in the double
sense of being shown to be of actual relevance (in the face of important and
urgent challenges) and in the sense of actually moving individuals and soci-
eties into action.
Yet there are of course things that have had to remain outside the scope of
this book, and I want to close by saying a word about these. Concerning the
challenge of global inequality, the question remains – which is one of the big
questions of global justice debates – as to what kind of a world order we should,
in the end, want. Chapter 4 has argued that we should not want a world state,
and that the exact shape and defensibility of a subsidiarity-based world order
remains under discussion. At the same time, there also remain questions about a
world order based on largely sovereign states. Thus, even if the underlying ideal
of a world order based on human rights can be endorsed, what is the most appro-
priate institutional form it could take remains a big question. Further progress on
this question will have direct implications for how to deal with the challenge of
global inequality and, in particular, for where inequalities of protection could
permissibly remain.
With regard to the challenge of future people, I have outlined a first (rather
broadly applicable) framework of priority-setting among human rights, a
­framework which also speaks to the question of how to deal with uncertainties,
particularly uncertainties concerning the future. Progress in specifying this
framework further and making it more fine-grained can best be achieved, I think,
by applying it further, following up on the outlines discussed in Chapter 5. The
cases to which the framework can speak are myriad, and I have, for the main
part, only referred to the (very important) case of climate change. Further
application of the framework will bring its strengths and its weaknesses into
greater relief and allow for its more detailed development.
The motivational question, finally, was treated in a very explorative way. The
subject is daunting, and I have not attempted to move beyond individual motiva-
tion to the motivation of institutions. Vast arrays of theorizing and of empirical
results from the social sciences are relevant to the motivational question, and
much more extensive explorations remain possible and needed.
There continue to be, then, many important agendas for future research. Still,
as yet, the arguments of this book have ended up striking an optimistic tone
about the possibilities for actualizing human rights.
122  Conclusion
Notes
1 All three issues – the two challenges and the motivational question – have been relat-
ively neglected in the literature on human rights, and certainly in the philosophical
human rights literature, to which this book particularly speaks. At the same time, all
three issues are bound to be greatly important and worrying to a wide array of people
who are interested in human rights and are this book’s envisaged audience: lawyers,
policymakers, academics, activists and citizens in general.
Usually, the challenges discussed have been cast as relating to ideal theory, that is to
say, to thinking about the best possible situation given human beings as they are. This
is theory of which we may at times – but by no means always – have a somewhat
better grasp than of non-ideal theory, of which there can be very many forms: in ideal
theory, the applicable background conditions will sometimes be clear. Moreover,
generally speaking, if central challenges to human rights cannot even be answered in
ideal theory, human rights clearly have a problem.
2 By contrast, the three issues central to the book are not radical or all-out, in the sense
that one can, in principle, be very sympathetic to human rights as providing a moral
ideal for the world, and still regard these issues as challenges.
3 Human rights can secondarily take on other roles, many of which may apply in ideal
situations, but also in (very) non-ideal situations: roles such as guiding internal and
external government policies, providing standards for international organizations and
businesses, etc. and guiding activism.
I have concentrated on a notion of human rights that does not depend on highly con-
troversial or theoretical commitments and that may be acceptable to people from
widely different backgrounds. This notion has not aimed to interpret the post-WWII
practice of human rights, or a part of that practice. But many aspects of it are quite in
line with the practice (for example, central aspects of my understanding of what a right
is, and of human rights as an ideal for the world) and, thus, this notion of human rights
may provide orientation for the practice.
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Young, Iris Marion (2011), Responsibility for Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ypi, Lea (2012), Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Index

alternatives to human rights 19n14, 32–3 order 50, 52, 60n41; and foreign
American Anthropological Association 24 assistance 53–4; example of endangered
Amnesty International 32 food provision 66–9, 71, 74, 77, 79–80,
anarchy 47, 50–1 86; and question of motivation 109
Arendt, Hannah 108 cognitive dissonance 31, 110
assumptions concerning interests and conflicts among human rights, spurious
number of future people 29, 83–5 68–9
autonomy, notion of 12 conspicuousness of non-realization of
avant-garde of citizens and professionals human rights 109
105, 108, 112–13, 118n59
democracy 20n26; deliberative 108; see
‘background culture’ of a society 13, also political rights
19n16, 91n53, 107 duties (moral) in relation to human rights
Beitz, Charles 18n10, 19n13, 22n42 16–17, 20n20, 21n34, 21n27, 22n42,
Buchanan, Allen 19n16, 58n1; Buchanan 22n45, 26–7, 29 46, 90n40, 97, 115n23;
and Russell Powell on motivation duty bearers 16–17, 20n20, 21n34,
102–3, 115n21, 116n31, 116n34 21n36, 21n38, 22n42, 22n45, 26–9, 35,
46, 63, 73–4, 79, 88n14, 116n26;
causality, notion of 21n39 ‘respect, protect, fulfil’ 21n37
challenge of future people, stated 1–2, 63,
1–5, 7, 63–86, 120–1; and assumptions entrance conditions, characterization of 66;
concerning the interests and number of enumerated 66–7
future people 83–85; and priority-setting equal dignity, notion of 43, 51, 60n37
among human rights 63–76; and equality of protection (of human rights),
uncertainties concerning future people characterization of 43–4, 58n2;
76–83 see also climate change alternative characterizations 62n53, 76;
challenge of global inequality, stated 1, 43, burden of proof for inequality of
1–5, 6, 43–58, 120–1; and alternatives protection 51–2, 57, 62n54; and
to a world order of largely sovereign equivalent protection 58n2, 91n53; only
states 47–51; and diversity of cultures limited scope for inequality of
53; and foreign assistance 46, 53–5; and protection 57–8, 76; principle in
levelling down 46–7, 55; see also priority-setting among human rights 76;
equality of protection; fundamental see also challenge of global inequality
equality of all humans; state-based equal moral status, notion of 43, 51, 60n37
world order expression, freedom of 71, 88n14, 89n37;
civil rights see list of human rights see also list of human rights
climate change, and challenge of future
people 1, 3–4, 7, 63–9, 71, 72, 77–86, ‘families’ of human rights 21n32, 25–6
120–1; and subsidiarity-based world food provision see climate change
130  Index
foreign assistance see challenge of global justice, importance of 12, 18n11, 19n13;
inequality minimum requirements of justice, notion
fundamental equality of all humans, of 12 see also global justice
characterization of 43, 51, 60n37, 51–3
future/end of human rights, debates about labour movement 104
23, 36n2, 38n37 legal aspects of the post-WW practice of
future people, challenge of see challenge human rights 18n10
of future people legal protections of human rights 21n42
legal rights and moral rights 19n16
Gardiner, Stephen 77–9 levelling down of human rights protection
genocides 76; early-warning system for 46–7, 55
32; Holocaust 107; Rwandan genocide Levi, Primo 25
of 1994 32, 107 list of human rights 15–16
Gewirth, Alan 20n28
global inequality, challenge of see motivation, notion of 97; effective
challenge of global inequality motivation 97–8, 101–6; acceptable
global justice, human rights and 1, 11–13, motivation 98, 106–7; due inclusion of
18n11, 19n14, 59n7; minimum human rights of future people 109; and
requirements of 13–18, 19n12, 22n43 fair division of moral labour 105,
group rights 21n32, 33, 37n21; see also list 126n33; motivation across generations
of human rights 98, 107–8; see also hypothesis HR;
question of motivation
Hobbes, Thomas 50 motivational question see question of
homo oeconomicus model of human motivation
behaviour 101, 111 movement, freedom of 86, 94n90
human right, notion of a 14–15
human rights, passim; role (s) of 12–13, Nickel, James 21n32, 21n34, 37n21, 89n36
19n11; active disrespect /active non-contrivance entrance condition
violation of 71–2; as concerned with 66, 77–9
reliable protection of very important ‘non-existence problem’ 87n1
interests 14, 69; effective realization of non-ideal theory 61n52, 99, 113, 118n60,
human rights, characterization of 97–8, 122n1
100–1; joint disrespect 72; see also ‘non-identity problem’ 87n3
‘families’ of human rights; list of nudging 110–11
human rights; duties (moral) in relation Nussbaum, Martha 22n43, 27, 115n23
to human rights; weight of human
rights plurality of cultures and social forms of
Human Rights Watch 32 life, and acceptance of human rights
hypocrisy, notion of 44, 58n5, 43, 47, 20n27, 26, 107
56–7, 59n7, 70 Pogge, Thomas 19n14, 21n36, 59n15,
hypothesis HR (about motivation of 90n14
individuals), stated 103, 103–13; other political pawns challenge, stated 2, 30, 2,
hypotheses 110–12, 117n48 23, 30–4, 119–20
political rights see list of human rights
ideal theory 8n16, 59n20, 60n32, 97, 99, practice of human rights (post-WWII)
113, 114n2, 122n1 11–13, 18n9–18n10, 19n13, 24, 31, 33,
imminent threats 64, 75 45, 99–100
interdependence of human rights 89n36, precautionary approach 77
90n38 priority-setting among human rights
International Covenant on Civil and 63–83; and assumptions concerning
Political Rights 18n10, 45 interests and number of future people
International Covenant on Social, 83–5; formal principles for priority-
Economic and Cultural Rights setting 69–76; not between isolated
18n10, 45 human rights claims 66; principled
 Index  131
approach to 65; two-step approach to state-based world order/ world order of
64; and uncertainties concerning future largely sovereign states,
people 76–83 characterization of 43; alternatives to
progressive realization of human rights 47–51; and (un)equal human rights
45–6 protection 43–58, 76
protection of human rights, notion of 58n2; stories, and (universal) validity of human
global baseline of 55–6 rights 15, 24–5, 27, 36n14, 37n17,
37n20; and motivation of individuals
question of motivation, stated 2, 97, for realizing human rights 107–9
97–118; approach via robust empirical subsidiarity-based world order,
evidence about individual motivation characterzation of 49, 49–50, 52, 58,
100’ as concerning effective, acceptable 60n41, 120–1
motivation across generations,
including the human rights of future terra incognita objection 48–50, 52,
people 97–8; limited relevance of real- 60n32, 60n41
world cases 99–100; see also two levels of specificity of human rights
motivation; hypothesis HR 26–8, 66, 88n16

Rawls, John 12–13, 18n11, 36n14, uncertainties, concerning future people

59n20, 97 77–83; visualization of 80–3, 93n78;
refugees, treatment of 100 notions of risk, uncertainty and
relativist challenge, stated 2, 24, 23–30, ignorance 77, 92n72
34, 119–20; see also universal validity Universal Declaration of Human Rights
of human rights (UDHR) 16, 18n10, 21n33, 24, 26–7,
resources (wealth, technological, 39n45, 66, 88n14, 90n48
institutional) and demands of human universal validity of human rights 24–30,
rights 45, 54–6, 61n50, 68, 73 66, 117n40; across time 28–9; and wide
Responsibility to Protect 32, 34 acceptance of human rights 26, 107; see
Risse, Mathias 46, 48–50 also relativist challenge
Rorty, Richard 4, 101–4, 116n27 utilitarianism of rights 69, 71

Scheffler, Samuel 73, 88n29 violations of human rights see human rights
self-determination, political and cultural
54, 61n45, 61n49 wealth disparities, global, and human
self-interest hypothesis 111–12 rights see challenge of global inequality;
Sen, Amartya 27 resources and the demands of human
Shue, Henry 14, 21n42, 77–9, 88n19 rights
socio-economic rights see list of human weight of human rights 17–18, 67–8
rights Williams, Bernard 28, 36n9
sovereignty of states, notion of 43, 46; world governance 47, 50
see also state-based world order world state 43–4, 47–50, 121
standard of living, human right to an
adequate 26–7 Young, Iris 90n42, 117n44