Community and Collective Rights: A Theoretical Framework for Rights Held by Groups.

AuthorDe Luca, Roberto J.
PositionBook review

Community and Collective Rights: A Theoretical Framework for Rights Held by Groups, By Dwight Newman, Hart Publishing, 2011. ($100.00).

Contemporary collective rights discourse has been largely influenced by Will Kymlicka's argument for group-differentiated rights. According to the now familiar argument advanced by Kymlicka, there is a clear reason for liberals to care about the fate of cultures, and to support group-differentiated rights for individuals who are members of minority groups: a rich and secure societal culture is the means to becoming aware of our life options and to examining their value critically. (1) According to Kymlicka, individuals should be entitled to group-differentiated rights insofar as societal cultures are instrumental to our becoming fully autonomous human beings.

In Community and Collective Rights, Dwight Newman provides a theoretical alternative to this regnant framework. As Newman aptly points out, Kymlicka's strategic tack of advancing group-differentiated individual rights, which has been widely influential in both theoretical and policy circles, rests on an objection to the possibility of developing a general theory of collective rights. (2) In contrast to Kymlicka's focus on rights that are held by individuals, Newman's ambitious aim is to articulate a theory of collective rights that are held by collectivities themselves. His approach is not "beholden to any liberal litmus test," but is instead built upon the narrower humanistic principle that individual well-being is of ultimate concern. (3) To this end, Community and Collective Rights is divided into three main parts: a justification of collective moral rights; an articulation of the conditions collectivities must satisfy to be legitimate bearers of rights; and, finally, an abbreviated examination of how to accommodate collective moral fights in practice, including principled reasons for and against interference with collectivities that do not comply with the conditions that make collectivities legitimate bearers of rights.

Part I constitutes the core of Newman's argument. Newman's starting point is the minimal ontological claim that collectivities have "particular structures and values." (4) Although collectivities are susceptible to social processes of change in terms of both structures and values, Newman argues that being subject to change does not necessarily lessen a collectivity's value: A crucial step in Newman's movement from collectivities as entities with particular structures and values to collectivities as entities that are legitimate bearers of rights is his adoption of an interest-based, as opposed to will-based, conception of rights: As Newman notes, "within an interest theory of rights...

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