4.4.2.2 Human Rights as a Standard of Behaviour

(This is archived version 2a of material from the Patterns of Power Repository; it is an update of Edition 2.)

Any society might have reached agreement on human rights (4.2.4). Socially-acceptable behaviour must include respecting people’s rights as defined by that society, not only those defined in its laws. Although the European Convention on Human Rights now has legal status (5.3.5.4), the law can only deal with visible violations. For example, failure to observe the equality between women and men (Article 23) and non-discrimination (Article 21) are both difficult to prove if they simply take the form of lack of respect for the other person.

The European Convention on Human Rights would be very difficult to change, requiring the agreement of all the signatories to it, so for immigrants to Europe they are practically-speaking non-negotiable. Other Western countries have comparable conceptions of human rights, such as the American Constitution, and these are also hard to change.

Some rights in the Western world might appear to conflict with the right to freedom of religion. Islamic texts allow women to be treated as inferior, for example, but in the West this is unacceptable – so Western Muslims have to resolve the apparent contradictions, as is possible with goodwill (4.4.4); most have adapted peacefully.