Legal Rights and Moral Rights: Old Questions and New Problems*

Ratio Juris ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMARTYA SEN
Keyword(s):  
1973 ◽  
pp. 221-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex M. Capron
Keyword(s):  

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Safet Emruli ◽  
Agim Nuhiu ◽  
Besa Kadriu

One of the legal intellectual property disciplines are copyrights which concerns artistic and literary works. Copyright is: bundle of exclusive legal rights that has to do with protection of literary and artistic works. It is granted to authors and artists to protect expressive works against unauthorized reproduction or distribution by third parties. Copyright protect “works”, expression of thoughts and ideas. Literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works must be original, it means not to be a copy. Copyright covers two other types of right: economic rights, the right of the owner to benefit financial reward from use of his work by others and moral rights which always have to do with original holder no matter if economic rights are transferred or not. Economic rights can be transferred. Bern Convention for the Protection of the Literary and Artistic Works is international key agreement and the oldest multilateral agreement in the field of copyright. Copyright subsists automatically on the creation of a work, no application needed, nor do any formalities apply. Nature of copyright is territorial and the minimum term of protection is life of the author plus 50 years after his/her death. In European Union and in certain number of countries, terms of protections of are extended to life of the author plus 70 years after his/her death.


Author(s):  
John-Stewart Gordon

There is an enormous range of contemporary and rapidly expanding literature on human rights that pervades almost every area of human life. This entry cannot do justice to all of these areas and would inevitably fail to cover all aspects of the philosophy of human rights. Here, the goal is more modest: offering a primary overview of the thorny literature and many vital human rights issues that can become increasingly complex and muddled. The concept of human rights, however, came to particular prominence in the 20th century after World War II, due to the atrocities (e.g., genocide against the Jews) committed by the Nazis. Since then, the idea of human rights has become profoundly influential in many different fields such as ethics, applied ethics, political philosophy, political sciences, law, international law, medicine, and public health. This has led to the formation of a new area in philosophy called “the philosophy of human rights.” The very idea of human rights, however, is older and can be traced back to early religious ideas and the notion of natural rights in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Generally speaking, human rights are primarily universal moral norms that bind all people in all places at all times independently of any legal recognition. Whether there is a widespread agreement that all human beings have human rights simply because they are human beings is a matter of debate. However, there is currently no common ground with regard to the moral and legal justification or the ontological and epistemological status of human rights. Human rights are primarily universal moral rights and, secondly, international legal rights observed and enforced by nation-states. Despite major caveats concerning the theoretical foundations of human rights, most scholars nonetheless hold the view that there is a vital consensus on the practical importance of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (cited under Modern Documents), is the most important human rights document and contains at least seven groups of basic rights: security rights, due process rights, liberty rights, political rights, equality rights, social welfare rights, and group rights.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 517-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Sepinwall

ABSTRACT: Scholars addressing the moral status of corporations are motivated by a pair of conflicting anxieties: If corporations are not moral agents, we will be unable to blame them for their wrongs. But if corporations are moral agents, we will have to recognize corporate moral rights, and the legal rights that flow therefrom. In early and under-appreciated work, Tom Donaldson sought to allay both concerns at once: Corporations, he argued, are not moral persons, and so are not eligible for many of the rights that persons enjoy; but they are moral agents, and so ought to bear responsibility in many of the ways that persons do. This article offers a sympathetic critique of the Donaldsonian strategy. I argue that, as it has been elaborated, the strategy necessarily fails. Nonetheless the strategy embodies a worthy aim and so I seek to provide an alternative way to vindicate it.


2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
CÉCILE FABRE

This article seeks to show that the rights which protect people's autonomy should be entrenched in the constitution of a democratic state. It is firmly located in egalitarian liberal tradition, as it takes for valid the following claims: (1) people have a fundamental interest in autonomy; (2) people have rights that their interest in autonomy, and the interests to which it gives rise, be protected and promoted; (3) people's respective interests in autonomy must be protected equally. The argument for a bill of rights unfolds as follows: first, it is argued that we have autonomy-protecting rights not only against private individuals but also against the state, and the meaning of having such rights against the state is explained; then it is shown that it is legitimate to turn certain autonomy-protecting moral rights into legal rights, and that doing so in the case of the rights we have against the state amounts to turning them into constitutional rights; lastly, two objections to the argument deployed earlier are countered.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 91-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Wolfesberger

Qualitative ethnographic study of the human rights violations committed in the course of the militarized combat against drug trafficking organizations in rural Michoacán unmasks state practices of coercive inclusion. The violation of human rights and the subsequent processing of human rights claims paradoxically bind the marginalized population to the formal state and foster its subordination. The practical configuration of the current arena of human rights is not the lever for a democratic, inclusive Mexico but a curtain that conceals the repressive practices that it makes possible. In the processing of human rights complaints, the legal rights of physical integrity and private property become moral rights with no effect of legal justice. Un estudio etnográfico cualitativo sobre las violaciones a los derechos humanos cometidas durante la lucha militarizada contra las organizaciones de tráfico de drogas en el Michoacán rural sirve para desenmascarar las prácticas de inclusión coercitiva del Estado. Las violaciones y el posterior procesamiento de las denuncias paradójicamente vinculan a la población marginada con el Estado oficial, fomentando su subordinación. La configuración práctica del actual contexto de los derechos humanos no funge como la palanca de un México democrático e inclusivo, sino como una cortina que oculta las prácticas represivas que el Estado hace posibles. En la tramitación de las denuncias sobre violación de derechos humanos, los derechos legales de la integridad física y la propiedad privada se convierten en derechos morales sin ningún efecto de justicia legal.


1976 ◽  
pp. 375-397
Author(s):  
Alexander M. Capron
Keyword(s):  

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-518
Author(s):  
Jani McCutcheon

Can the honour of the dead be prejudiced? There is much philosophical debate about whether the dead can, or should, enjoy legal rights. Australia, like many jurisdictions, has apparently bypassed that debate and confers post-mortem moral rights on authors, which endure for at least 70 years after an author's death. The Australian moral right of integrity protects authors from certain conduct in relation to their copyright works, which is prejudicial to their honour or reputation. This deliberate conferral of a posthumous right ostensibly acknowledges that a deceased author's honour can be harmed. This article examines questions surrounding the apparent conundrum of posthumous prejudice to an author's honour. How can prejudice to the honour of the dead be established in the absence of the author, particularly if honour is interpreted subjectively? Do insuperable evidentiary hurdles render the posthumous honour limb of the moral right of integrity illusory? The article concentrates on Australian law, but engages in relevant comparative treatments, particularly with French, Canadian and United Kingdom law. Judicial consideration of moral rights under the common law is scant, particularly in Australia, and rarer still in a post-mortem context. However, the issues explored in the article are important, will inevitably arise for consideration and merit a comprehensive examination.


1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onora O'Neill

Rights to compensation are much invoked and much disputed in recent liberal debates. The disputes are generally about supposed fundamental (natural, human or moral) rights to compensation, whose recognition and legal enactment would transform some lives. For example, special treatment in education or employment are claimed as compensation for past denials of equal opportunity; special consideration for Third World countries in aid and trade terms is claimed as compensation for the injustices of the colonial past.We can make ready sense of the idea of legal rights to compensation. Legal rights to compensation guarantee (some) recompense for damage suffered. The damage for which compensation is given may or may not be produced by wrongdoing; it may also be negligent or accidental or due to natural causes. In law, compensation is not always contingent upon the victim having suffered injury as well as harm, nor upon saddling a wrong-doer with the costs of compensation. Insurance policies standardly cover damage due to accident and neglect. Legal rights to compensation may provide for payments to victims of violent crime, to those whose property is requisitioned or damaged, to victims of libel or malpractice, and even to victims of natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes. Legal rights to compensation are a standard way of dealing with the predicament of those who become victims, whether of others' (criminal) action, of their own negligence, or of natural catastrophe.None of this shows that there are fundamental rights to compensation. Legal rights to compensation may lack moral grounding: and if they are morally grounded, they may rest not on fundamental rights to compensation, but on background positions in which rights are derivative or inessential.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Safet Emruli ◽  
Agim Nuhiu ◽  
Besa Kadriu

One of the legal intellectual property disciplines are copyrights which concerns artistic and literary works. Copyright is: bundle of exclusive legal rights that has to do with protection of literary and artistic works. It is granted to authors and artists to protect expressive works against unauthorized reproduction or distribution by third parties. Copyright protect “works”, expression of thoughts and ideas. Literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works must be original, it means not to be a copy. Copyright covers two other types of right: economic rights, the right of the owner to benefit financial reward from use of his work by others and moral rights which always have to do with original holder no matter if economic rights are transferred or not. Economic rights can be transferred. Bern Convention for the Protection of the Literary and Artistic Works is international key agreement and the oldest multilateral agreement in the field of copyright. Copyright subsists automatically on the creation of a work, no application needed, nor do any formalities apply. Nature of copyright is territorial and the minimum term of protection is life of the author plus 50 years after his/her death. In European Union and in certain number of countries, terms of protections of are extended to life of the author plus 70 years after his/her death.


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