Human rights are moral principles, or norms, for certain standards of behaviour and are regularly protected as substantive rights in substantive law, municipal and international law.
The United Nations claims as one of its great achievements the creation of a comprehensive body of human rights laws.
The United Nations charter is persuasive but not legally binding. In the UK the Human Rights Act 1998 gives legal effect to the European Convention of Human Rights and therefore is legally binding on the courts with a right of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
ECHR judges have engaged in judicial creativity to expand the range of activities covered by the Convention (a recent case has brought environment/climate change within its ambit). The Convention has taken on a life of its own divorced from the supposed intention of its original authors, in much the same way as the meaning of USA Constitution has been moulded by the judiciary.
The UN states human rights are rights inherent to all human beings. But are they Inherent? Is this simply a nod in the direction of natural law and natural rights theories, or a deliberate intention to claim some natural or metaphysical basis for human rights? Bentham was in no doubt, any attempt to invest human rights with a natural law underpinning was a 'nonsense'.
Our concept of what are human rights might well be influenced by moral values based on religious beliefs. However it is a mistake to believe that religious moral values are God given and by extension natural values. Scripture is human understanding of God. It is not inerrant nor to be interpreted literally.
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