- Summer 2010
The conventional approach to human rights, emphasising the law and legal process for protecting and attaining rights, has been successful in achieving significant social justice outcomes. However, this approach to human rights is also limited and can paradoxically disempower citizens in their struggle for human rights. The law is essentially a top-down process; laws are drafted, legislated and applied, with citizens having very little say in any of these three stages, apart from often tokenistic programs of consultation. Therefore, while human rights remain largely in the legal arena they will remain out of reach, and it can indeed be argued that this represents a denial of human rights, in that citizens are unable to exercise the right to define their rights.
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