The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

What is Meant by Human Rights 51
of choice. I then seek to demonstrate that since values,
human legal rights and governmental economic policies
are interlocked, public policy choices in allocating
resources as between competing claims are valuedetermined.
The particular choices made dictate the
extent in practice of social and economic legal rights. I
conclude by arguing that, unless there is an attempt to
reconcile human rights values with Treasury principles,
Governments may fail to conform to international human
rights standards and to the United Kingdom's human
rights' traditions.
What is meant by Human Rights?
I use the words "human rights" to refer to the concept
that every member of the human race has a set of basic
claims in virtue of his or her humanness. Historically,
these claims covered "natural rights" to life, liberty,
property and freedom of religion. They later came to
cover all traditional civil liberties (the rights of man) and
rights of political participation (the rights of the citizen).
Subsequently they were extended to cover "social,
economic and cultural rights," a phrase which refers to
the duty of the state to provide, without discrimination,
for those material conditions, including education,
working conditions and welfare benefits, which will
result in a minimally decent standard of living, that is,
freedom from want or "welfare rights." The preamble in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sums up:
"The peoples of the United Nations have in the
Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human
rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person