Author Description

"It has been said that the struggle for human rights "is as old as history itself, because it concerns the need to protect the individual against the abuse of power by the monarch, the tyrant, or the state." Speaking in 1978 on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United States (US) President Jimmy Carter declared that, of all human rights, "the most basic is to be free of arbitrary violence - whether that violence comes from governments, from terrorists, from criminals, or from self-appointed messiahs operating under cover of politics or religion". Those fundamental realities notwithstanding, the right to life, per se, is a relatively recent addition to the law of nations. "To say that each person ought not to be killed is an easily comprehensible moral statement, however much it may in practice be violated." In "contrast", Kenneth Minogue suggested, "the idea that each person has a 'right' to life is, on the face of it much more puzzling""--