Fundamental Human Rights and the Military Regime in Nigeria: What did the Courts Say?

1971 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. O. Aihe

The rights of the individual in the society have been conceived as natural rights—which in the modern state have no more than a moral force. In the context of a modern state which asserts absolute powers within its borders, it appears idle to suggest as in the traditional natural law theories that there is anything like a law of nature existing independently of and overriding positive law.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (58) ◽  
pp. 489
Author(s):  
Jean Carlos DIAS ◽  
Versalhes Enos Nunes FERREIRA

RESUMO Objetivo: O estudo objetiva compreender a lei natural e direitos naturais, baseado na aproximação entre direito e moral. Assim, objetiva perquirir sobre a teoria jusnaturalista de John Mitchell Finnis, a fim de aproximar o direito positivo e o direito natural com a condição basilar para o alcance do florescimento da sociedade e do próprio indivíduo. Metodologia:Para atingir os fins esperados, a metodologia utilizada será documental, utilizando-se o método dedutivo, com caráter bibliográfico. Para tanto, utilizou-se a revisão bibliográfica, adotando-se como marco teórico John Finnis, especialmente por intermédio da obra “Lei Natural e Direitos Naturais”. Resultados: Com alicerce na teoria jusnaturalista de Finnis, o artigo aborda a pesquisa científica, na medida em que aproximou-se o direito positivo e o jusnaturalismo, bem como demonstra que a saúde é um bem jurídico fundamental. Assim, apresenta como resultado o pensamento de Finnis, ao revelar os critérios utilizados por ele para a construção de sua lista de bens, que reside na compreensão de que os valores listados são perceptíveis, óbvios, manifestos, inquestionáveis e não precisam de demonstração, pois são objetivos; a mera observação da vida em sociedade é capaz de os identificar. Seus bens são a própria razão de qualquer ação moral ou racionalmente moral, além de outros critérios valorativos de cunho universal que alcançam culturas, instituições, ações e requisitos morais, enfim, um plexo de bens que permitam à pessoa sua realização no contexto coletivo, sem, contudo, hierarquizá-los. Por fim, ao resgatar a teoria defendida por John Finnis, resgata-se, por conseguinte, a importância que a saúde merece, pois é um integrante do bem básico da vida. Contribuições: A contribuição central do presente trabalho cinge-se em defender, argumentativamente, a possibilidade de entender a saúde como bem básico autônomo em Finnis, pois os bens básicos para ele têm um caráter pré-moral, prépolítico e pré-jurídico, ou seja, ainda não se transformaram em obrigações e, acreditase, sem a proteção do bem saúde seria praticamente impossível a uma sociedade alcançar o seu florescimento, que é propósito externado pelo filósofo em sua obra. Palavras-chave: Saúde; John Finnis; jusnaturalismo; direito e moral. ABSTRACT Objective: The study aims to understand natural law and natural rights, based on the approximation between law and morality. It aims to investigate John Mitchell Finnis' s jusnaturalist theory in order to bring positive law and natural law closer to the basic condition for achieving the flourishing of society and the individual himself. Methodology: To achieve the expected purpose the methodology used will be documentary, using the deductive method with bibliographic character. The bibliographic review was used adopting John Finnis as a theoretical framework, especially through the work “Natural Law and Natural Rights”. Results:Based on Finnis' s jusnaturalist theory, the article addresses scientific research as positive law and jusnaturalism approached, as well as demonstrating that health is a fundamental legal good. It presents Finnis's thinking as a result by revealing the criteria used by him for the construction of his list of goods, which lies in the understanding that the values listed are perceptible, obvious, manifest, unquestionable and do not need demonstration, as they are objective; the mere observation of life in society is capable of identifying them. Their assets are the very reason for any moral or rationally moral action, in addition to other universal valuation criteria that reach cultures, institutions, actions and moral requirements, in short, a plexus of assets that allow the person to perform it in the collective context, without , however, to rank them. Finally, when rescuing the theory defended by John Finnis, it is therefore rescued the importance that health deserves, as it is an integral part of the basic good of life. Contributions: The central contribution of this paper is to defend, arguably, the possibility of understanding health as a basic autonomous asset in Finnis, since the basic goods for him have a pre-moral, pre-political and pre-legal character, that is, they have not yet become obligations and, it is believed, without the protection of good health it would be practically impossible for a society to achieve its flourishing, which is a purpose expressed by the philosopher in his work. Keywords: Health; John Finnis; jusnaturalism; right and moral.


Author(s):  
Michał Wendland

The main difference between classical (both ancient and medieval) and modern concepts of natural law lies in the assumption of its supernatural (divine) foundation. Early modern philosophical concepts tend to undermine and gradually to deny God or some other metaphysical entity as the source of natural law. Some contemporary scholars (e.g. Habermas, Bobbio) define this process as transition (modernization, rationalization, Positivisierung) of traditional natural law towards the idea of natural rights and human rights. We can distinguish at least three main schools of natural law during the 17th and 18th centuries, each one more radical than the others: de Groot dares to consider the natural law “as if there were no God”. The philosophers of early Enlightenment (e.g. Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire) were perhaps more daring, nevertheless they were all deists and the “Supreme Being” still validates natural law in their writings. The article aims to examine the most radical view on natural law, i.e. partly forgotten and underestimated ideas of French materialists: La Mettrie, Diderot, Holbach, Mably, and Condorcet. For they were all thinkers of the radical Enlightenment (J. Israel), all of them were materialists and atheists, and they perceived the nature and natural law as completely separated from God or other supernatural being. Unlike their older colleagues, these radical philosophers demanded equality (for women and ethnical minorities as well), emancipation, and social justice for all classes. This papers describes the idea of natural law within the radical Enlightenment movement,and investigates some political consequences of this interpretation during the French Revolution. While strongly materialistic, progressive, and atheist, the ideas of Diderot, Holbach, Mably, and Condorcet were also perceived as politically dangerous. All revolutionary attempts to put these ideas into political and social practice have failed. Finally, these ideas were refuted, but they returned during the 19th- and 20th-century debates on human rights.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 613
Author(s):  
Christopher Tollefsen

Critics of the “New” Natural Law (NNL) theory have raised questions about the role of the divine in that theory. This paper considers that role in regard to its account of human rights: can the NNL account of human rights be sustained without a more or less explicit advertence to “the question of God’s existence or nature or will”? It might seem that Finnis’s “elaborate sketch” includes a full theory of human rights even prior to the introduction of his reflections on the divine in the concluding chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. But in this essay, I argue that an adequate account of human rights cannot, in fact, be sustained without some role for God’s creative activity in two dimensions, the ontological and the motivational. These dimensions must be distinguished from the epistemological dimension of human rights, that is, the question of whether epistemological access to truths about human rights is possible without reference to God’s existence, nature, or will. The NNL view is that such access is possible. However, I will argue, the epistemological cannot be entirely cabined off from the relevant ontological and motivational issues and the NNL framework can accommodate this fact without difficulty.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-534
Author(s):  
Jean Rhéaume

At least two important consequences follow from the fact that human rights are based on human nature. First, they exist according to natural law even in cases where positive law does not recognize them. Secondly, they cannot evolve because the nature and purpose of the human being does not change: only their formulation and level of protection in positive law can vary according to the socio-historical context.


Author(s):  
Kenneth Pennington

One of the most notable characteristics of Western societies has been the development of individual and group rights in legal, theological, and philosophical thought of the first two millennia. It has often been noted that thinkers in Non-Western societies have not had the same preoccupation with rights. The very concept of rights is laden with numerous problems. Universality is the most basic and difficult. If human rights are only a product of Western ideas of justice, they cannot have universality. In an age that is dominated by conceptions of law embracing some form of legal positivism, many scholars recognize only individual rights that have been established by the constitutional jurisprudence of individual countries or their legal systems. Historically, the emergence of rights in European jurisprudence is intimately connected with the terms ius naturale and lex naturalis in Western jurisprudence and theological thought. Human beings may never agree on universal rules of a natural law, but they might agree on universal precepts that shape the penumbra of rights surrounding natural rights.


2020 ◽  
pp. 234-267
Author(s):  
Nigel Biggar

What is wrong with rights might lie in several places. Some accuse the very concept of a right belonging to an individual as a kind of property. Chapter 6 considered this charge and found it wanting. Instead, Chapters 5, 7, 8 and 9 identified problems in misleading connotations of talk about ‘natural rights’, the failure to reckon with the contingency of rights upon economic and political conditions, and the importation of what is paradigmatically a legal idea into ethical deliberation. An additional possibility is that problems lie not only in concepts of rights, but also in the way in which judges treat them. This is the topic of this chapter and the following one. The present chapter examines recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (Al-Skeini [2011], Al-Jedda [2011]), and the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (Smith [2013]), which threaten the UK’s military power. It concludes that, in these cases, the jurisprudence of the European court is vitiated by an imprudence born of a limited historical and political imagination, a culture of risk-aversion, and an ideological rights-fundamentalism. Such imprudent jurisprudence serves to weaken the military effectiveness of European States Party and their ability to support politically fragile states, to undermine states’ confidence in international treaties, and to provoke calls for states’ withdrawal from the Convention altogether.


2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-69
Author(s):  
Douglas J. Den Uyl ◽  
Douglas B. Rasmussen

Whether or not Strauss's observation is historically accurate, it does suggest two sets of questions for philosophical examination. (1) Is Strauss correct to view natural duties and natural rights as the same type of ethical concept? Do they serve the same function? Do they work on the same level, and are they necessarily in competition with each other? (2) Does saying that the individual human being is the center of the moral world require that one reject the idea of a human end, or telos? Does accepting the ethical centrality of a human telos require that one reject ethical individualism? Are they mutually exclusive?


Significance Pompeo launched the commission on July 8, charging it with providing “fresh thinking” on human rights where concepts of rights have “departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights”. However, the body’s precise activities are left vague. The commission is also widely interpreted as an effort to infuse the current framework for human rights in US foreign policy with more conservative social values. Impacts The commission could be a flashpoint in budget negotiations down to September/October and beyond. The body will likely reinterpret rights more conservatively, including on abortion and LGBT issues, and elevate religious liberty. The pro-Israel lobby will welcome the commission, partly as the UN has been criticised as being ‘anti-Israel’.


Author(s):  
Eva Balážová ◽  
Jaroslav Ivor ◽  
Marta Hlaváčová

The issue of the legal regulation of criminal offenses against the republic is interesting and concise, as it points to the importance of protection and security of the societal interests of the Slovak Republic. Defining the individual facts of crimes against the republic ensures protection against crimes that may threaten the very democratic establishment of the republic, its sovereignty, security, defense, as well as its territorial integrity. In the Slovak Republic, the area of crimes against the republic has undergone several changes, in particular the recodification of criminal law. The main crimes related to the ideology and organization of the socialist state were changed after 1989. The basis of the recodification changed the system of the Criminal Code, which expressed a change in the priority of protection of basic human rights and freedoms of individuals over the interests of the state. This change points out the position of the values of the citizens of the Slovak Republic in today’s modern state and at the same time regulates the obligations that the citizen of the whole society has.


Author(s):  
Frank Grunert

Whether Christian Wolff’s concept of innate rights is a substantial contribution to the development of the concept of human rights or not has been a major concern of recent literature. This chapter explores the role of Christian Wolff’s conception of iura connata or innate rights as possible foundations for the modern doctrine of human rights, imbuing natural law with a degree of transhistoricality and engaging with Knud Haakonssen’s rather different treatment of Wolff’s natural rights as alienable.


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