Human rights are what Ronald Dworkin calls ‘political trumps’. They constitute the basic minimum respect and dignity which is the right due to any person by virtue of being human. These are rights which can be claimed in spite of the particular laws which may appear on the statute books in South Africa, Palestine, El Salvador, Iraq, Romania, the Baltic republics, the United Kingdom, the United States or anywhere else on earth. It is not the task of theology ‘to deduce [these rights] theologically from specifically Christian premises’. They are rights for all people, whether they choose to live under the gospel or not. Human rights are simply ‘there’ to be claimed and appropriated by all of humankind. The Swakopmund Declaration, written in the midst of the Namibian struggle for independence in 1975, captures this emphasis in affirming that ‘the dignity of human personality is a gift of God, which cannot be conferred, and must not be infringed by any human political authority’.

Theology, at the same time, sensitises and makes Christians aware of the nature of these rights, providing them with an incentive to live in accordance with their demands. ‘The Word of God sharpens our insight into reality’, states the LWF study. The statement by John Paul II in his address to the Pueblo Conference (cited earlier) views human rights in the same way: ‘Thanks to the Gospel, the Church possesses the truth about the human being.’