FK - FS paper Rome 140604

caused by one's fault or negligence) came first - a person's
right was the result of another person's legal obligation.
Increasingly however, contracts or tort law or specific
legislation are bound to become the less important basis for
asserting and litigating claims. More often, claims will tend
to be founded on entitlements grounded in fairly absolute,
general and open-ended rights of a new type, such as the right
to a clean and safe environment, the right to health, the
right not to be harassed or the right not to be discriminated
against - the latter on the basis of a manifold of criteria.
Here, obligations follow from rights: first come the rights -
a person's obligation is the result of another person's right.
It is the traditional system put on its head. Such new rights
can be individual or collective in nature. They may - and do
- affect a very broad range of human activity. Their
proliferation adds a legal dimension to virtually every type
of relationship in society, thereby multiplying potential
claims, and increasing the volume of litigation.
Enforcement. The new rights and entitlements can be enforced
through litigation - by individuals, but very often also by
groups. Those groups include groups to which an individual
actually belongs, but also advocacy groups including nongovernmental
organisations (NGO's). They may seek and obtain
jurisdiction in the most amenable and willing forum.
Removal of collective decision-making through politics.
Traditionally, regulation amounted to the setting of
collective standards. Those standards were the result of
deliberations through the political and/or administrative
process. Their aim was to achieve certain policy goals which,
collectively, were deemed worth pursuing, and simultaneously
to create certainty and predictability for those who had to
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