A Quote by Trevor Phillips

Human rights are not worthy of the name if they do not protect the people we don't like as well as those we do. — © Trevor Phillips
Human rights are not worthy of the name if they do not protect the people we don't like as well as those we do.
Judges are the people who have to protect the rights of individuals, have to protect the rights of minorities, have to protect the rights in the Constitution, have to protect the requirement that the executive and the legislature not simply exercise raw power but adhere to standards of reasonableness and constitutionality.
Let's not use the term democracy as a play on words which is what people commonly do, using human rights as a pretext. Those people that really violate human rights [the West] violate human rights from all perspectives. Typically on the subject of human rights regarding the nations from the south and Cuba they say, "They are not democratic societies, they do not respect human rights, and they do not respect freedom of speech".
Rights compliance helps effective outcomes, it does not hinder them. That should come as no surprise because the 'human rights' in the Human Rights Act are the rights adopted in the aftermath of the horrors of the second world war, and are designed to protect all of us from oppression.
Yes, the state must intervene to prevent the exploitation of poor Indian women who are enticed or coerced into surrogacy, as well as to protect the rights of surrogate children. However, it should also be empathetic to individuals with alternative lifestyles who are well within their legal and human rights to demand access to surrogacy services.
For many years as a foreign correspondent, I not only worked alongside human rights advocates, but considered myself one of them. To defend the rights of those who have none was the reason I became a journalist in the first place. Now, I see the human rights movement as opposing human rights.
I do protect human rights, and I hope I shall always be looked up as a champion of human rights.
This, then, is the truth of the discourse of universal human rights: the Wall separating those covered by the umbrella of Human Rights and those excluded from its protective cover. Any reference to universal human rights as an 'unfinished project' to be gradually extended to all people is here a vain ideological chimera - and, faced with this prospect, do we, in the West, have any right to condemn the excluded when they use any means, inclusive of terror, to fight their exclusion?
True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights — and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard.
We cannot speak of human rights in other countries unless we are going to do our utmost to protect the rights of our own people here at home.
There are those who argue that the concept of human rights is not applicable to all cultures. We in the National League for Democracy believe that human rights are of universal relevance. But even those who do not believe in human rights must certainly agree that the rule of law is most important. Without the rule of law there can be no peace.
Those who have been outspoken in advocating human rights during these last forty years, have themselves grabbed the most fundamental of human rights from the people of the Third-World countries.
Civilization, to be worthy of the name, must afford other methods of settling human differences than those of blood letting.
It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on.
I published a thesis about animal rights when I was studying in England in 1991. Back then, I was a human rights lawyer and people condemned me for talking about animal rights when human rights are still not guaranteed. However, human rights are guaranteed in a society where animal rights are secured.
Some people ask, 'Why the word 'feminist'? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?' Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general - but to choose to use the vague expression 'human rights' is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender.
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