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‘Right’, ‘liberty’ and ‘civilisation’ are contested ideas. The nature of civilisation or its absence altogether in a given age depends critically on the kind of rights that prevails in that time. Many civilisations in the past were built on conquest, genocide, slavery and plunder. They produced wondrous monuments, great cities, immortal works of art and even profound philosophy but the condition of the ordinary person was one of abject poverty and servitude. One civilisation alone emancipated unprivileged persons politically and economically on a mass scale. That civilisation is our own. The author contends that liberty founded on a certain conception of right is what distinguishes this civilisation from those of the past. The defence of this achievement is a moral imperative.
Suri Ratnapala is Professor of Public Law at the T C Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.
More information at https://rightstalk.humanrights.gov.au