In the language and literature of politics there are few concepts at once as important and as confused as the idea of human rights.

The testimony to its importance is convincing. Countless men have died in the name of human rights. Entire societies have been formed with some vision of human rights as the central social creed, while other societies have been thoroughly disrupted by internal elements pursuing such rights. And today the politics of many nations and much of the politics among nations is carried on in verbal categories of human rights.

But if the significance of the notion of human rights is evident, the fact of disagreement about its meaning is no less clear.