untitled

WERNER HAMACHER

the United Nations)—among these adjustments the most urgent are the ones that may be
derived from the following demands:

1. That everyone ‘‘alone as well as in association with others’’ has the right to property,
   but loses this right whenever it is used for the social, political, or juridical definition
   of that which he himself, his community, or any other are or should be. Property, as
   well as the right to property and the right to have this right, are the means to do
   away with these means.


2. That everyone has the right to appear in any form whatsoever in and before his
   chosen public, so long as he does not deduce or demand to deduce from this the
   further right to regard this appearance as a representation of that which he is or
   should be. Each manner of appearing has its own right. This right is lost whenever it
   is used for the manipulation or overpowering of other manners of appearing—even
   before itself.


3. That everyone has the right to belong to one community or several communities,
   and to act upon them in such a way that all other rights are being furthered in every
   way. The furthering of these rights may not be limited by any of these communities
   or any cooperation between them. Wherever such limitation is enforced or threatens
   to be enforced, a right to part without sanction from the community or communities
   steps into place.


4. That sovereignty lies not in a people, nor in a nation or state and its representatives.
   Sovereignty is neither a category of right nor of its foundation or preservation.


5. That no community and no politically constituted society has the right to isolate any
   of its members, whether it be in order to protect itself or in order to exert punish-
   ment. Societies are associations of adoption. Every form of isolation, of segregation
   and arrest is a form of social murder. The killing of a human being can never be
   legal.


6. That everyone has the right to inform himself and others about these rights and to
   participate in the formulation of their consequences and the regulations concerning
   their enforcement. Everyone has the right to question these rights, to respond to them
   and to their insufficiencies, and to act to transform them, alone or in association with
   others, in view of their improvement.


7. That there is nonaturalorpositivelimit to the right to change all rights, including
   human rights in their traditional definition. The ‘‘everyone’’ to whom these rights
   are granted must include not only citizens, but also minors, permanent or visiting
   residents, as well as former and potential members of communities of rights. All
   rights therefore are transitional rights, which must prove their historical character by
   being open to future rights that are more just and by being open to a justice beyond
   right.

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