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In a departure from the mainstream methodology of a positivist-oriented jurisprudence, Collective Rights provides the first legal-theoretical treatment of this area. It advances a normative-moral standpoint of 'value collectivism' which goes against the traditional political philosophy of liberalism and the dominant ideas of liberal multiculturalism. Moreover, it places a theoretical account of collective rights within the larger debate between proponents of different rights theories. By exploring why 'collective rights' should be differentiated from similar legal concepts, the relationship between collective and individual rights and why groups should be recognised as the third distinctive type of right-holders, it presents the topic as connected to the larger philosophical debate about international law of human rights, most notably to the problem of universality of rights.
1. Legal-theoretical account of the topic helps readers differentiate between the problems of legal conceptualisation and other relevant issues which concern collective rights
2. Grounded in the normative-moral view of 'value collectivism', but sheds new light on the dominant standpoint of 'value individualism', which takes collectives to be only instrumentally, and not inherently, valuable
3. Demonstrates how the topic is connected to the larger philosophical debate about the international law of human rights
Contents: What it means for a theory of collective rights to be legal - reflections on methodology -- Theories of rights and collectives as right-holders -- Collective rights as a distinctive legal concept -- Are there universal collective rights? -- Conclusion : collectives as the third type of right-holders.