A Contribution to the Understanding of Right

Abstract

The foremost issue that confronts contemporary legal jurisprudence is that of rights and yet paradoxically, modern legal discourse has failed to grasp the normative essence of right. This essay is concerned with one fundamental inquiry of how we can understand rights and the relationship between right and legality. From whence does legality obtain its normative coercive bindingness?A discussion of rights is intrinsically linked to the understanding of law. This is not to circumvent the issue. Rather, it is a starting point and we shall come back to the issue of: what is right? This is a critical question since man is bom in law, must lead a life governed by law and his after life is governed by law. Law is not an invention of the legal theorist. It is given and manifests itself as a regime of moral regulation.