While most human rights instruments leave open the question of when life starts and when
it ends, making it a matter for judicial interpretation, the American Convention on Human
Rights is explicit on when life starts. Article 4(1) states:
“Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law
and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
life.”Human Rights for Corporations? Beyond the medical setting, one can question
whether legal persons (such as corporations) are should be deemed to count as
human persons for the sake of human rights. On one hand, they do not have feelings
and we do not deem them to be endowed with dignity. On the other hand, it seems
that certain rights naturally express themselves through corporations and excluding
corporations from protection can lead to gaps in the system. For instance, it is
customarily assumed that freedom of press can be exercised by a newspaper
company or that freedom of association includes the right to create legal persons.
This particular issue has been resolved differently in different jurisdictions. The European
Court of Human Rights grants protection to corporations, the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights does not.Collective RightsAnother relevant problem is the rights of collectives. Human
rights have been traditionally conceived as rights of individuals; they are tied
historically to individualism and liberalism. Many have thought that such individu-
alism should be tempered by adding a collective dimension to the rights that protect
not only the individual person but also the subsistence of a group and its customs.
Due to the presence of various indigenous tribes in South and Central America, the Inter-
American Court of Human Rights has recognized at times that there are human rights that
these tribes enjoy collectively, especially the right to collective ownership of their ancestral
lands. The African Convention on Human and Peoples’ Rights takes the same approach,
and explicitly recognizes collective rights to development, peace and a healthy
environment.
The danger of collective rights is that they may enter into conflict with individual
rights, for instance when the right of a collective to enjoy its traditional forms of
justice implies the endorsement of discriminatory practices or the use of
punishments that are now considered inhumane.
This is arguably a problem for some Latin American countries where indigenous tribes
have gained the right to use and administer their own justice system. This system some-
times involves flogging, the death penalty and rudimentary standards of evidence, which
are human rights violations under the local constitution.
The same can be said of other deeply held cultural practices like female genital
mutilation and forced marriages, which though “essential” to the conservation of a tradi-
tional culture, are human rights violations under the international standard.Future Generations Finally, at a more theoretical level, one may wonder about
the status of future generations. The unborn do not have a say or a vote in politics of
any sort, yet they may be severely impacted by decisions taking place now, for
instance concerning the conservation of the environment. This powerlessness might
justify granting them rights.
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