Today Date: 17th September 2026
In our society, the terms human rights and fundamental rights are frequently invoked in public discourse; yet, their conceptual foundations are rarely discussed or systematically taught, either formally or informally, within social or institutional settings. As a result, confusion often arises regarding what constitutes a human right and what does not. This conceptual ambiguity was illustrated through an encounter shared by a senior police officer during a visit by a professor to the Bangladesh Police Academy. The professor inquired whether newly recruited police officers were adequately trained and sensitised to ethical values, human rights standards and religious injunctions. In response, the officer explained that within the limited duration of police training typically six months to one year, efforts are made to address such issues insofar as time permits, alongside rigorous training in physical and mental fitness, parade, legal procedures, and other routine professional requirements. However, the officer emphasised that the foundational understanding of ethics, morality, piety, and human and fundamental rights is expected to be cultivated much earlier, within the family, educational institutions, and the broader social environment in which an individual is born, brought up and raised. When such moral and ethical grounding is not instilled during the formative years particularly before the age of eighteen, it becomes exceedingly difficult to impart these values effectively during professional police training. At this point, the narrative concludes with the professor’s silence, underscoring the implicit acknowledgment of this structural and societal gap in rights education.
Human rights constitute a universal and normative framework grounded in the inherent dignity and equal worth of all human beings, irrespective of nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, or political affiliation. Rooted in moral philosophy and codified through international legal instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent covenants, human rights articulate a set of fundamental entitlements that are inalienable, indivisible, and interdependent. They encompass civil and political liberties as well as economic, social, and cultural rights, reflecting the understanding that freedom, justice, and human development are mutually reinforcing. At their core, human rights impose obligations on states and other duty-bearers to respect, protect, and fulfil these rights, while also providing a normative benchmark against which power, governance, and public authority are evaluated. In this sense, human rights function not only as legal guarantees but also as ethical constraints on the exercise of power and as a foundational principle for democratic governance and social justice.
Human rights refer to the rights inherent to human beings and have existed since the dawn of human civilization. However, not all rights enjoyed by humans qualify as human rights. While all such rights may broadly be termed rights of mankind, only those rights that possess certain defining characteristics can be regarded as human rights. These characteristics include inherence in human nature, inalienability, inviolability, and universality. Moreover, human rights are indispensable; without them, individuals cannot exist as human beings in the full sense, nor can they develop their personality and humanity.
To illustrate, consider the example of a crying child. Crying is an innate human behaviour; no one teaches a child how to cry—it emerges naturally from human nature itself. Moreover, this act cannot be delegated or transferred to another person; it is inherently inalienable. If someone were to forcibly stop a child from crying by covering the child’s mouth, such an act would be inhumane, as it seeks to suppress a natural and fundamental expression. In this sense, the right to cry is inviolable.
This principle applies universally to all children, irrespective of race, gender, place of birth, or historical period. Whether a child is born in the present, in the distant past, or in the future whether in a poor hamlet of Bangladesh, in an African country, or in the affluent quarters of a major urban centre in the developed world, the innate nature of this behaviour remains fundamentally constant. Thus, such an inherent human attribute is universal, applying to all people across all times.
If a child is persistently silenced whenever it attempts to cry, the child’s ability to develop as a human being is severely impaired. Personality development is hindered, and the essential process of human growth is disrupted. Therefore, an innate, inalienable, inviolable, and universal right without which a person cannot live as a human being or develop personality and humanity, constitutes a human right. What holds true for the child applies equally to all human beings.
Among these defining features, inherence and inalienability are of paramount importance. Scholars have consistently emphasized that these two characteristics distinguish human rights from all other forms of rights.
This conceptual framework also clarifies the distinction between ordinary legal rights and human rights. In legal theory, a right is generally understood as an interest recognized and protected by law. Although all legally recognized interests may be termed rights, not all of them qualify as human rights. For instance, if Rahman goes to a market and agrees to pay a fair price to a fish vendor, he has a legal right to purchase fish. This right is recognized and enforced by law. However, the right to buy fish is not inherent to Rahman’s human nature. It can be delegated to another person, such as Bashar. Nor is it essential for Rahman’s survival as a human being or for the development of his personality. Consequently, while it is a legal right, it does not constitute a human right.
The foregoing illustrations illuminate an important conceptual distinction between rights in general and human rights in particular. Rights, in their broadest philosophical sense, may arise from custom, social contract, citizenship, or positive law. They may be contingent upon membership in a political community, conditioned by legal status, or subject to limitation by legislative authority. Human rights, by contrast, derive from the inherent dignity of the human person. They are not granted by the state; rather, they are recognized as pre-existing moral entitlements that every individual possesses by virtue of being human. Thus, while all human rights are rights, not all rights qualify as human rights. The former are universal and inalienable; the latter may be particular and conditional.
Yet a purely philosophical understanding is insufficient for contemporary governance and legal practice. Human rights must also be understood within a juridical framework. The decisive moment in the legal articulation of modern human rights came on 10 December 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Although formally a declaration rather than a treaty, the UDHR has acquired profound normative authority and is widely regarded as the foundational text of modern international human rights law.
Comprising thirty articles, the Declaration enumerates twenty-five distinct rights. Nineteen of these fall within the domain of civil and political rights—such as the right to life, liberty, equality before the law, freedom of expression, and participation in government. The remaining six rights are categorized as economic, social, and cultural rights, including the rights to work, education, social security, and an adequate standard of living. Together, these rights reflect an integrated vision of human dignity, rejecting any artificial hierarchy between liberty and welfare, or between negative and positive obligations of the state. Over time, the principles embodied in the UDHR have influenced binding treaties, constitutional jurisprudence, and customary international law, thereby embedding human rights firmly within the contemporary global legal order.
The evolution of the very terminology “human rights” is itself historically significant. The expression was first used by Thomas Paine in 1789 during his English translation of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. The phrase “rights of man,” while revolutionary in spirit, was linguistically and conceptually limited, as it did not explicitly encompass women. In the twentieth century, Eleanor Roosevelt—who chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights—advocated the adoption of the more inclusive term “human rights” within the United Nations framework. Her intervention was both symbolic and substantive, ensuring that the emerging international rights regime would reflect gender inclusivity and universal applicability. The acceptance of this terminology marked a decisive step toward a comprehensive and egalitarian conception of rights.
In sum, the transition from philosophical discourse to legal codification, and from exclusionary language to inclusive universalism, represents a transformative development in the history of rights. Human rights today stand not merely as moral claims but as legally recognized standards that bind states and guide international order, grounded in the inherent dignity of every human being.
Md. Motiar Rahman