Human Rights: A Balance of Liberty and Duty

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and these rights are inherent in our nature. Human Rights play important role in our lives because it allows us to live free, and unworried. Having the right itself just makes us feel special. It’s like owning something that’s never going to be broken, be stolen, and lost. It’s with us anywhere and anytime and without which we cannot live as human beings. But such freedom is not absolute as well as no one’s rights are absolute. Integral to rights are the issues of responsibility or duty.

Human rights just like a coin have two sides – liberty and duty. One cannot exist without the other. A human right as a duty is considered as a claim right which entails that another person has a duty to the right-holder. Somebody else must do or refrain from doing something to or for the claim holder. Every claim-right entails that some other duty-bearer must do some duty for the claim to be satisfied. This duty can be to act or to refrain from acting. For example, many jurisdictions recognize broad claim rights to things like “life, liberty, and property”; these rights impose an obligation upon others not to assault or restrain a person, or use their property, without the claim-holder’s permission.