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1 L. & Ethics Hum. Rts. 3 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/lehr1 and id is 1 raw text is: Foreword Since the end of the Second World War, the world has witnessed a dramatic rise in the scope of human rights law. The democratization process which has been rapidly unfolding in many parts of the globe has induced new democracies to entrench a bill of rights in their constitutions and to abide by human rights treaties. Well beyond the increase in its territorial application, the substantive scope of human rights law has been greatly extended. While first generation rights, civil and political rights, were initially perceived as a safeguard against the abuse of governmental power, current human rights law also recognizes social and economic rights. Social and economic rights obligate the state not merely to refrain from acting but also to take positive action. In addition, third-generation rights, which are rights that are granted to groups rather than to individuals, have also been recognized. More and more human rights scholars and lawyers now believe that the duty to respect human rights norms is no longer restricted to governments and applies to private entities as well. Indeed, human rights law is now a near-omnipresent phenomenon. Surprisingly though, the process that produced this impressive increase in the scope of human rights law has not been accompanied by a systematic and comprehensive theoretical treatment. Whereas stimulating theoretical discussions developed within the framework of each generation of rights, the theoretical attempt to address human rights in a coherent manner appears inadequate. The theoretical glue binding the various generations of human rights appears too feeble to hold together legal provisions derived from divergent, and in some cases even contrasting, value systems. In addition, academic discourse of human rights is not always sensitive to the difficulties in applying these broad human rights norms across national contexts. The Journal of Law & Ethics of Human Rights aspires to fill this gap. We intend to do so by analyzing and clarifying the concepts of moral and

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