In “Rethinking Indivisibility” James Nickel presents a system that can provide a consistent explanation of the relationship between the expanding group of human rights. Nickel points out the UN’s Proclamation of Tehran which supports Henry Shue’s claim that people cannot enjoy rights without having security and minimum economical provisions. While Nickel agrees with Shue’s argument, he disagrees with the “grand claims that all human rights are interdependent and indivisible” . According to the author, it is necessary to divide human rights in seven families so we can see the relationship between them and how this relationship affects the strength and implementation of said rights.
Nickel argues that the relationship between rights has different directions and strengths. The scholar claims that two rights are indivisible only when the relationship goes both ways and it is strong enough that if it is interrupted the rights lose their ground. The other forms of relations vary from interdependent (weaker version of indivisible) to useful (one right can safely exist without the other, but with some instability).
Nickel also claims that rights that are thoroughly protected and enforced have much closer and stronger relationship than the ones that are weakly managed. Thus, a blow to a right that is strongly related to another will have much harsher
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He points out that some rights have higher value than others (e.g. the right to life over the right to education) and even if they are related to each other putting them on the same level of importance will bring contradictions. Nickel claims that the only way for all rights to be indivisible is if all of them are universally protected to their fullest extent. As the author points out, this is certainly the case in developing countries who are not capable of protecting all the “western” rights of their citizens so they need to put preference to