Human Rights, Institutions and the Division of Moral Labor

Abstract Are human rights general moral norms, or are they conceptually tied to the political function of setting limits to the sovereignty of states? This essay steers a middle course in conceptualizing human rights as basic norms of political morality. Human rights arise out of general moral claims held by individual human beings simply as such, but they play a particular role as necessary conditions of political legitimacy. Nevertheless, we should not identify them with those norms whose violation might justify restrictions on the sovereignty of other states. Such an equation would result in an all too minimalist conception of human rights. The essay advocates a more ambitious conception that integrates civil rights and human rights, particular state and global politics, democracy and collective self-determination under the perspective of a division of moral labor.