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Question of the Month

What & Why Are Human Rights?

Our readers give their thoughts, each winning the right to a random book.

I believe that human rights can be defined as those inalienable rights one should have on the basis of being a human, regardless of faith, ethnicity or political views. They include the right to life, freedom of the self and of speech, and the right to preserve personal space from external interference. Of course, human rights are not absolute; they are defined and redefined continuously. Yet those I’ve mentioned are universally agreed upon, at least among the member states of the United Nations.

Human rights stem essentially from what the Greek philosopher Thales (c.

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