Frances Lawrence is dismayed and who can blame her? She has learned that Learco Chindamo, the killer of her husband, Philip, will not be deported when he comes out of jail because of his ‘human rights’. The following is most of an article which I wrote yesterday for the Daily Express:

The trouble is, the idea of ‘human rights’ has become all powerful. It is a new kind of religion. It demands obedience whatever the circumstances and sometimes drives out common sense. ‘Human rights’ govern much of our lives these days and how we tell other countries to govern themselves, too. But does the idea itself make sense? Do ‘human rights’ exist, in fact, or are they are just a fantasy? And does living slavishly in accordance with them really make our lives better?

I suggest that the whole idea is figment of the imagination. If one looks at how it developed, it is fairly clear that it was dreamed up by intellectuals to justify resisting the power of kings. The French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was probably the first to use the phrase, “les droits de l’homme” – ‘the rights of man’ – in 1762. It is well known that the French were angry at the way the kings of France used their immense power in the 18th century. Naturally their minds turned to how they could justify opposing a king who, according to the theory of the time, was annointed by God. A contrary theory was needed to make those who wanted to curtail the king’s power feel virtuous instead of sinful. The ‘Rights of Man’ fitted the bill and it is no coincidence at all that the American revolutionaries eagerly picked up on the phrase to justify rebelling against British rule.

So that’s where we got the idea. It was a clever justification for rebelling. You could even call it a kind of ‘spin’. During the French revolution, the rights they were demanding were “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!”. But the human rights which people insist exist keep on changing. That, indeed, is one of the reasons for believing that they don’t genuinely exist. Rights under human laws exist, of course. And people create legal rights based on their notions of human rights. But human rights themselves do not exist.

Or, if they do, who created them? Now that our society is secular, nobody claims any more that they were created by God and if they did make such a claim, they would find precious little support for it in the Bible. There the emphasis is on how human beings must be good and worthy of heaven, not how they can demand one thing or another.

Proponents of the idea of human rights think these rights exist independently, without having been invented by us. If so, what is the evidence for their existence? The modern world is meant to be scientific and want proof of things. Where is the proof that human rights exist?

Jeremy Bentham, the British philosopher, called the idea of human rights “nonsense on stilts”. Bentham really got the wind behind his sails: “from real laws come real rights” he said. But “from laws of nature, fancied and invented by poets, rhetoriticians and dealers in moral and intellectual poisons come imaginary rights, a bastard brood of monsters, ‘gorgons and chimeras dire’”.

If human rights had an independent and true existence, they would have been around at all times, in all countries. Yet somehow, we are to assume, the vast majority of civilisations that have ever existed never noticed them. It is part of the vanity of modern times to be quite comfortable with the idea that we are much cleverer and more perceptive than, say, Socrates or Confucius.

“Ah yes,” someone might say, “human rights are an intellectual fantasy, but they are a jolly useful one. The idea has done a lot of good, furthering human happiness and bringing down tyrants.”

Is that true? I accept it may be possible that, in some circumstances, the idea might have helped a bit. But there are thousands where it has not helped at all. It is not doing much good in Zimbabwe right now. And there are a great many instances where it has led humans into stupidity or cruelty.

The French Revolution led to a ‘reign of terror’. Thousands who had done no harm to anyone were guillotined. All this was fed by a sense of righteousness that the concept of human rights encouraged. The concept of ‘human rights’ was the grandfather of communism and the miseries and terrors of Mao’s China and Stalin’s Russia. If only these people had been suffused with an idea of decent human behaviour, they might not have killed millions. Instead they were filled with the idea that they were creating a perfect world to which people had a ‘right’.

In modern times, the Human Rights Act hamstrings the government as it tries to keep out terrorists and fight crime. And then there are the times when the effect of human rights is just silly. Earlier this year, a zoo in Sussex wanted to hire someone to be the Fat Controller of its “Thomas and Friends” railway. The zoo’s “legal human resources advisers” warned that it must not advertise for a fat male. Indeed, there must be no question of discriminating against a thin female to play the role. Yes, it was all a matter of ‘human rights’. This was truly, “Nonsense on stilts!”

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The website has been down for a week or so. Sorry about that. It is now working (mostly).

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The funniest thing that has happened in Britain for a long time....

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I attended a lecture last week by a British officer who had served in southern Iraq. He said his experience was 'exceptional'. It certainly was awful.

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