The Functioning of the ECtHR and Protocol No. 14

2008Murat Volkan DülgerArticle

Abstract

This work was written in Turkish. The summary on this page is a translation; the citation gives the original title in parentheses.

At first glance, and without the need for any explanation, the concept of human rights evokes the notion of the rights that a human being has. This concept is expressed by the terms “human rights” in English, “droits de l’homme” in French and “Menschenrechte” in German. Although human rights are defined in legal scholarship as the rights a person has simply by virtue of being human, it is beyond dispute that this is a very vague and abstract explanation. When these words are unpacked, it is seen that the concept raises two important theoretical questions: what it means to have a right, and how it is that simply being human forms the basis of rights. These are the first and perhaps the most important theoretical questions of human rights.