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14 - Human Rights as Public Goods

from Part II - Human Rights as Public Goods in Wealth Creation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2021

Georges Enderle
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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Summary

Rarely discussed in the literature, the book defines human rights as public goods. This innovative perspective connects human rights to public wealth (see Chapter 5), characterized by non-rivalry and non-excludability and assessed as “good” – not “bad” – in ethical terms. Human rights are often understood as individual claims addressed to governments or other actors while ignoring their public good character. Some examples illustrate this widespread attitude that is only challenged when the public costs of human rights repression becomes evident. Like public goods in general, human rights can be final goods (or goals to be achieved for themselves) or intermediate goods (or means to realize other goods or rights). This means that securing human rights has far-reaching positive consequences while abusing human rights generates severe public bads by also violating other human rights and causing economic and social harm. – Due to their public good character, two wide-ranging implications follow: Human rights cannot be achieved by market institutions, but need collective actions at multiple levels of society; and self-regarding motivations alone inevitably fail to establish, fulfill and guarantee human rights, whence other-regarding motivations are indispensable.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Human Rights as Public Goods
  • Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book: Corporate Responsibility for Wealth Creation and Human Rights
  • Online publication: 11 January 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913966.017
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  • Human Rights as Public Goods
  • Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book: Corporate Responsibility for Wealth Creation and Human Rights
  • Online publication: 11 January 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913966.017
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Human Rights as Public Goods
  • Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book: Corporate Responsibility for Wealth Creation and Human Rights
  • Online publication: 11 January 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913966.017
Available formats
×