Universal Rights

The basic rights common to all, articulated by humanity after its worst century and extended at the new millennium to All — and still, almost everywhere, unmet.

Recognising the inherent dignity and worth of every being as a member of one family of life, a basic list of rights can be stated, flowing from the law of love and the universal values beneath it. Humanity has already done most of that articulation: freedom and equality at birth; life, liberty and safety; freedom from slavery, torture and degrading treatment; recognition before a law applied the same way to everyone; access to justice, and no arbitrary arrest; a fair and public hearing, and innocence presumed; privacy of person, family, home and correspondence; movement, asylum, nationality; freedom of thought, conscience and belief; opinion and expression; peaceful assembly, with no one compelled to belong; a part in the government of one's place; work in just conditions at just pay, with rest and holiday; a standard of living adequate to health and wellbeing, and security when livelihood fails; education toward the full development of a person; a share in the cultural and scientific life of the community — and, finally, an order in which all of the above can actually be realised.

Two clauses in that inheritance are easy to skip and are the hinge of the whole thing. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone their free and full development is possible. And no individual, group, or state has the right to destroy these rights. The first makes the list reciprocal rather than a claim on somebody else (Universal Responsibilities · Rights and Responsibilities). The second makes it non-negotiable.

The canon's contribution is not a longer list but an honest verdict on the existing one: these are not manifest. In every country there are great inequalities, corruption, unequal treatment in society and in law, and a share of people struggling to survive rather than to flourish. However we are organising ourselves, it is not producing these fruits. So the question the page ends on is the right one and it is a design question: what kind of society could actually guarantee such rights? — and what way of co-operating would let every being develop the fullness of what is in them, inside a whole that holds together (Society · Governance · Equal Opportunity For All)?

Rights, in this frame, are distinct from aspirations. An aspiration is the ideal being walked toward; a right is what is owed now (Ideal · Justice).

Also called: human rights · the rights common to All Stands on: Dignity · The Logic Of Love · Values · Law Opens onto: Universal Responsibilities · Rights and Responsibilities · Justice · Equal Opportunity For All · Protection Of Children · Recourse · Adjudication · Citizenship · Sovereignty · Pillar XI — Sacred Society and Justice In play: the Room and beyond — the floor beneath any agreement a body makes, and the standard any structure it builds is measured against Sources: Universal Rights (root page, draft — the thirty summarised articles, the not-manifest verdict, and the design question) · Rights and Responsibilities, Universal Responsibilities (root pages) · lionsberg.wiki: Universal Rights Open: The list is the canon's own restatement of an existing international declaration rather than a fresh articulation, and the page says so; whether the canon intends to adopt, extend or rewrite it is not decided. · The canon names Universal Aspirations as a distinct category and never writes that page.