Human Rights and Rawls's the Law of Peoples: A Critical Approach

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a justifying approach to rights embedded in international documents in light of Rawls’ Global Theory of Rights and, then, evaluating them from the said approach. Indeed, it is endeavored to distinguish justified rights from unjustified claims under the rubric of rights. In this regards, John Rawls in his book, Law of Peoples, characterizes human rights as non-dependent on a particular ideology and religion, necessary, global and minimalistic. This paper, by evaluating human rights on the basis of the afore-said criteria, concludes that some of the alleged rights by international documents are unjustified and indefensible. Rather, they are ideals which, in any society and based on their common comprehensive doctrines and understanding of justice, are to be alleged and pursued. In the end, a reference shall be made to the necessity of formal and substantive criteria for the use of human rights concept and also to negative consequences of “rights inflation”.