A group right is a right held by a group as a group rather than by itsmembers severally. The “group” in “groupright” describes the nature of the right-holder; it does notdescribe the mere fact that the right is confined to the members of agroup rather than possessed by all members of a society or by humanityat large. Much of the controversy that surrounds group rights focuseson whether groups can hold rights and, if they can, on the conditionsa group must satisfy if it is to be a right-holder. Some proponents ofgroup rights conceive right-holding groups as moral entities in theirown right, so that the group has a being and status analogous to thoseof an individual person. Others give groups no such independentstanding, but conceive group rights as rights shared in and heldjointly by the group’s members. Some opponents of group rightschallenge the very proposition that groups can bear rights. Others donot, but worry about the threats that group rights might pose forindividuals and their rights. They are met by counter-claims thatindividual and group rights, suitably formulated, can be complementaryrather than conflicting and that some group rights might also be humanrights.

• 1. Identifying group rights
• 2. Moral and legal group rights
• 3. Groups as right-holders
• 4. Group rights: corporate and collective
• 5. Group rights and collective goods
• 6. Scepticism about group rights
• 7. Fears of the implications or consequences of group rights
• 8. Group rights and individual rights: co-existence and complementarity?
• 9. Group rights and human rights
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Identifying group rights

A group right is a right possessed by a group qua group rather than byits members severally. It contrasts with a right held by an individualperson as an individual. An example of a commonly asserted group rightis the right of a nation or a people to be self-determining. If thereis such a right, it is a right possessed and exercised by a nation ora people as a group. It will not be reducible to the individually-heldrights to individual self-determination of those who belong to therelevant nation or people. Other rights that have often been assertedas group rights include the right of a cultural group that its cultureshould be respected and perhaps protected; the right of a linguisticgroup that its language should be usable and provided for in thepublic domain; and the right of a religious group that it should befree to engage in collective expressions of its faith. Groups rightsare also claimed for organized groups such as commercial corporations,churches, political parties, universities and charitable associations.In each of these cases, the right is a right held by the group quagroup, and duties generated by the right will be duties owed to thegroup.

Group rights should not be confused with rights that people possess invirtue of being group members. People normally possess rights asmembers of universities or sports clubs or businesses or trade unionsor churches or states but, in the ordinary run of cases, these areindividual rights. For example, the right of a member of a universityto use its library, or the right of a citizen to vote in elections, isthe right of an individual person. An infringement of that right wouldinfringe the right of the individual right-holder, rather than a groupright of the relevant university or state. In fact, most rights heldby individuals are associated with group identities or groupmemberships of some sort. If we are willing to extend rights tonon-human animals, even human rights will be rights unique to aparticular group; yet most human rights are conceived as individualrights and, on some views, can only be individual rights.

A group right should not therefore be identified with a“group-differentiated” right. That term has been coined byWill Kymlicka (1995) to describe a right that is accorded to aparticular group but not to the larger society within which the groupexists. For example, a society might accord special rights, such asspecial territorial rights or rights of self-government, to anindigenous minority in recognition of the special status that thatminority should enjoy within the larger society, or out of concern forthe vulnerability of its traditional form of life. These would be“group-differentiated rights”. That term is now sometimesabbreviated to “group right”, which is unfortunate since agroup-differentiated right may or may not be a group right properlyso-called. If, for example, the group-differentiated right is theright of a group to be self-governing, it will also be a group right.But if it is, for example, a right unique to the members of anindigenous minority to fish in certain waters and if that right isvested in, and is exercisable by, the several individuals who make upthe minority, it will be a group-differentiated individual right.(Kymlicka 1995, 45–48; Jones 2010.)

2. Moral and legal group rights

Group rights can be legal or moral or both. If a legal system accordsrights to a group, or recognises it as an entity possessing rights, itwill simply be the case, for that legal system, the group has rights.Those legal rights might then spawn moral rights. A law may create awrong that would not otherwise be a wrong but, if the legal system isgenerally just and if the law serves a useful purpose, its breach maybe considered a moral, as well as a legal, wrong. For example, you mayhave no right to a particular good in the absence of a law giving youlegal title to it but, once you have legal title, my theft of thatgood can wrong you morally as well as legally. Similarly, once a grouphas been accorded legal rights, we might think that, in at least somecases, violations of its legal rights wrong it morally as well aslegally. A group may therefore be credited with legally-dependentmoral rights.

If group rights could only ever be creatures of law, however, we couldnot protest that a legal system failed to recognise or respect agroup’s right. Proponents of group rights, like proponents ofindividual rights, have been keen to use the language of rights inarguing about the form that legal, political and social arrangementsshould take. That implies a conception of group rights that is moralin foundation and that might be used to determine what legal rightsgroups should have. It is as moral rights that group rights are mostcontroversial. Individual rights are subject to innumerable disputes,but few deny that individuals, as persons or in other capacities, arecapable of possessing rights. By contrast, many reject the very ideathat groups can possess moral rights and even those who embrace thatidea frequently disagree over the sorts of group that can possessthem.

3. Groups as right-holders

No-one ascribes rights promiscuously to every kind of group, so whatmakes a group the kind of group that might bear rights? For manytheorists an essential condition is the integrity it manifests: agroup must surmount a threshold of unity and identity as a group if itis to be capable of bearing rights.

Thus Peter French (1984, 5–18) distinguishes between“aggregate collectivities” and “conglomeratecollectivities”. An aggregate collectivity is a mere collectionof individuals such as a crowd or the people standing at a bus stop ora statistical category such as middle-income earners. If we were toascribe either moral responsibility or moral rights to an aggregate,those would be reducible, without remainder, to the responsibilitiesand rights of the several individuals who made up the aggregate. Aconglomerate collectivity, by contrast, has a unified being since itis formally constituted as an organization with an internal structure,rules, offices and decision-procedures. (For a similar, but notidentical, distinction between aggregates and organizations, see Copp1984.) French’s examples of conglomerates include the DemocraticParty, the US Congress, the US army, the Red Cross, universityfaculties and business corporations. Organizations of this sort haveidentities that are not exhausted by those of the persons in them; oneperson’s leaving and another’s joining does not yield a neworganization. Thus, “what is predicable of a conglomerate is notnecessarily predicable of all of those or any of those individualsassociated with it” (1984, 13), including the rights andresponsibilities we might ascribe to the conglomerate. French does notdeny that the individuals in a conglomerate, such as a businesscorporation, will have rights and responsibilities relating to itsactivities; he denies only that the rights and responsibilities of theconglomerate can be distributed without remainder amongst thoseindividuals. Thus, if the Gulf Oil Corporation buys or sells property,or joins a cartel, or is found causally responsible for environmentalpollution and held morally responsible for cleaning it up, theCorporation as agent and as patient is not reducible to theindividuals who are currently associated with it.

Dwight Newman (2011, 4) distinguishes in a similar fashion between“sets” and “collectivities”. A set, likeFrench’s aggregate, becomes a different set each time its membershipchanges. A collectivity, by contrast, remains identifiable as the samecollectivity even though its membership changes. For both French andNewman, a group’s having an identity that survives changes in itsmembership is essential to its being the kind of group that might bearrights. (See also Graham 2002, 68–9; List and Pettit 2011,31–32; Van Dyke 1977.)

The phenomenon of a group’s having an identity and existence that isseparate from its members is most readily apparent in the case offormally organised groups. So, for example, we can think of a footballclub or a university department or a trade union as remaining the samefootball club, university department or trade union, even though theindividuals who constitute its members change over time. When you or Ijoin or leave a formally constituted organisation, there is somethingindependent of ourselves that we join or leave. Thus, if we ascriberights to a formally constituted group, the right-bearing group willbe something other than the set of individuals who happen to belong toit at any moment.

Formal organization may not be deemed essential to a group’s having anirreducible and enduring identity. Nations, for example, are oftenconceived as entities whose identities run across successivegenerations of nationals. A nation’s historic entitlement to aparticular territory would typically be conceived as the entitlementof a single enduring entity rather than a right inherited andbequeathed by successive generations of nationals so that,historically, no temporally continuous entity has possessed rightsover the territory. People are given to thinking of nations in thisunitary and enduring fashion even in cases, such as the Kurds, where anation has not been instantiated in a state, or the Poles, where thenation has been deprived of political independence for lengthy periodsof its history. Whether we conceive a group as having an identity andbeing that supersedes that of its members turns not just on what wefind in the world, but also on how we see it.

For some proponents of group rights, we should look for the integrityessential for right-bearing neither in the group’s internalorganization nor in its objective characteristics but in itssubjectivity. What matters is that the individuals who make up thegroup feel themselves strongly bound together as members of a groupwith which they identify. Marlies Galenkamp holds that a right-holdinggroup must possess a strong form of intra-group solidarity and be thekind of group that communitarians describe as a constitutive community(1993, 81–100, 111–2, 131; see also Segesvary 1995).Michael McDonald (1991) argues that it is a shared understandingamongst individuals that they are normatively bound to each other thatmakes them a group for moral purposes. That shared understanding maybe related to and promoted by shared objective characteristics, suchas a common history, language, system of belief or social condition,but it is still the subjectivity of the group rather than thoseobjective features that is crucial to its being a right-bearing group.Larry May (1987) and Paul Sheehy (2006, 151–173) also find thesource of a group’s moral status in the interrelatedness of itsmembers, but argue those interrelationships are significant for thecommon interests and needs to which they give rise.

A significant measure of unity and identity might then be essentialfor a group’s being the kind of group that can bear rights but, if itis, that condition would seem necessary rather than sufficient. Thosewho question the very idea of group rights do not deny that groupscome in different forms or that some exhibit a high degree of unity orthat groups can be very important in people’s lives. They deny onlythat we have reason to ascribe groups, however unified and howeversignificant, the moral properties they must possess if they are to beindependent right-holders. So where do proponents of group rights findthose properties?

Philosophical analyses of rights have been dominated by two rivaltheories. One is the choice or will theory according to which to havea right is to possess a choice (e.g. Hart 1982; Steiner 1998). On thattheory, rights can be possessed only by beings capable of choice. Ifwe take the case of claim-rights (rights that impose correspondingduties upon others), those rights should be ascribed only to beingscapable of exercising control over the performance of thecorresponding duties. We can possess rights only if we are capable ofexercising them.

The other theory is the interest or benefit theory for which thecrucial feature of a right lies in its providing for theright-holder’s interest or benefit (e.g. Kramer 1998; Lyons 1969). Ifwe take the case of claim-rights again, those rights can be ascribedto the beings at whose interests the corresponding duties aredirected, irrespective of whether the right-bearer is able to controlthe performance of those duties. Of course, not every interest willgenerate a right and interest theorists usually therefore propose morediscriminating versions of the theory. David Lyons (1969, 176), forexample, provides that someone has a claim-right only if they are the“direct, intended beneficiary” of another’s duty. Inanother much-used formulation, Joseph Raz (1986, 166) holds that X hasa right “if and only if X can have rights, and, other thingsbeing equal, an aspect of X’s well-being (his interest) is asufficient reason for holding some other person(s) to be under aduty”.

In conformity with these rival theories, some accounts of group rightsemphasize a group’s capacity for choice or, as it is more commonlydescribed, its capacity for “agency” as the crucial testof its capacity to possess rights, while others focus upon the group’scapacity to possess interests as a group.

A capacity for agency is central to the ascription of rights to groupsin the accounts of Peter French (1984, 1995) and Christian List andPhilip Pettit (2011). French argues that we have reason to ascribesome groups the moral agency and moral personality that we ordinarilyascribe to human individuals. If a group is to be a moral agent, itmust be capable of intentional action as a group; it must be able tohave purposes, plans, goals and interests that motivate its conduct.It must also be capable of making rational decisions about itsintentions and of responding to events and ethical criticism byadjusting its intentions and behaviour as those bear upon others(1995, 10-12). Conglomerate groups, such as business corporations,which possess internal decision structures and expressly formulatedpolicies, can meet those conditions. That suffices to make them bothmoral group agents and “full-fledged moral persons”equipped with moral responsibilities and moral rights. They areproperly accorded “whatever privileges, rights and duties asare, in the normal course of affairs, accorded to all members of themoral community” (1984, 32).

For List and Pettit (2011) a group can be an agent if it hasrepresentational states, so that it can form beliefs, and motivationalstates so that it can possess desires. It must also be capable ofprocessing and acting on its beliefs and desires and of attaining aminimal level of rationality, particularly consistency, in the way itsattitudes connect with one another and with its environment. Organizedgroups, such as states, churches, commercial corporations andvoluntary associations, can, they argue, satisfy those conditions andso be agents. The attitudes formed by such groups supervene on thoseof their individual members but are not reducible to those of theirmembers. A group can therefore possess agency as a group.

The specific case that List and Pettit make for group agency isepistemological rather than ontological and cannot be reproduced here.Agency alone, however, does not make the case for group rights. Arobot could be an agent but it would not bear rights since it wouldnot possess the sort of agency required for personhood. List andPettit adopt a “performative” conception of personhood,according to which being a person turns on what an entity can dorather than the stuff of which it is made. To be a person is to be“an agent who can perform effectively in the space ofobligations” (173). It is to be capable of participating in asystem of conventions, such as a system of law, in which theparticipator contracts and honours obligations to others and derivesentitlements from the obligations of others. Group agents possess thatnormative capability and so should be accounted persons. As persons,they can and should be held morally responsible for their actions andbe credited with rights, albeit fewer rights than we should ascribe tonatural human persons (on which, see section 7 below).

Making group agency a necessary condition for group right-holdingsignificantly limits the range of groups that might possess rights.Adina Preda (2012), for example, an adherent of the choice theory,holds that only organized groups equipped with collectivedecision-procedures can possess rights since only they are capable ofintentional action as groups. Groups that lack those structures, suchas ethnic or linguistic groups, may have members who possessindividual rights relating to their group characteristics, but thegroups of which they are members will not possess rights asgroups.

Those who subscribe to the interest theory of rights can view therange of groups that might possess rights much more generously. ThusKeith Graham points out (2002, 89–93) that a group does not haveto be a moral agent to be a moral patient or to be treated more orless justly or to flourish more or less well. Similarly for May(1987), McDonald (1991) and Sheehy (2006) the critical considerationis that a group can have interests as a group that are more than theaggregated interests of its individual members. That renders groupscapable of being harmed or of being treated unjustly as groups andtherefore suitable candidates for rights.

The most developed and sophisticated interest-based account of grouprights has come from Dwight Newman. For Newman (2011, Part I) groupsthat constitute right-bearing “collectivities” can rangefrom corporations and churches to cultural groups and hockey teams. Acollectivity is distinguished by the central values to which it iscommitted and by a structure which defines its membership and marks itoff from other groups. Its members are essential to its existence, butthe collectivity is no mere aggregation of its members. Rather, itsupervenes on its members. It supervenes on their existence but alsoon their relationships with one another and their beliefs about thoserelationships. Supervenience does not imply reducibility; neither theexistence of the collectivity, nor its actions or intentions, can bereduced to those of its individual members. For Newman a collectivityhas moral status as a collectivity. It can therefore bear moral rightsand moral responsibilities as a collectivity. It can also haveinterests, which are other than the aggregated interests of itsmembers; those interests will lie in whatever makes the collectivity’slife go better as a collectivity. In conformity with Raz’s conceptionof rights, a group’s interests will generate rights whenever they areof sufficient importance to justify the ascription of duties toothers.

Miodrag Jovanović (2012) provides another interest-based accountof group rights but of a rather different sort. Current internationaland domestic systems of law ascribe rights to groups, such as rights ofself-determination and rights designed to protect their cultures.Jovanović seeks to explicate those rights by uncovering the“normative moral standpoint” implicit in them. Thatstandpoint, which he himself endorses, is, he argues,“value-collectivism”: “the view that collectiveentities can have inherent value, which is independent of itscontribution to the well-being of individual members” (2012, 6).In other words, we should understand the legal rights attributed to agroup as grounded in the irreducibly collective value of the group, avalue that is not reducible to the value of the group for the severalindividuals who constitute its members. Jovanović does notascribe those rights to every sort of group recognised in law. Inparticular, he does not ascribe them to juristic persons, such asbusiness corporations and trade unions. Rather, he ascribes them onlyto groups that possess a pre-legal existence and identity, such asnational, ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. It is theirreducibly collective interests of those groups that, on his account,legal group rights should aim to protect and promote.

4. Group rights: corporate and collective

The various approaches to group rights described in the previoussection share a common feature. Each supposes that ascribing a rightto a group entails conceiving the group as moral entity in its ownright: the group must possess a moral standing that is not reducibleto the standing of its members. That is why arguments about grouprights frequently assume the same character as arguments about theascription of rights to foetuses or the dead or future generations ornon-human animals. In each case, the central issue is whether weshould allow that the relevant entity has the moral standing necessaryfor it to bear rights.

If, for groups, we answer that question affirmatively, we shallconceive group rights analogously with individual rights. A groupright, like an individual right, will be a right held by a singleunitary entity. The right of a group will be “its” rightrather than “their” right. Indeed, we might think of agroup right as the right of a “group-individual”. Groupsmight bear duties in the same fashion. A group, as a single integralentity, can possess duties just as it can possess rights, and thoseduties may derive from group rights. For example, each nation’s rightof self-determination is most obviously directed at other nations who,as nations, have corresponding duties to respect one another’s rights.(It remains logically possible, of course, that duties stemming fromgroup rights will fall upon individual persons, just as it is possiblethat the rights of individual persons will generate duties for groups.On the relatively neglected subject of group duties, see Collins,2019.)

This might be described as the “traditional” conception ofgroup rights, in that it describes the way in which group rights havebeen most commonly understood. In recent years, however, someproponents of group rights have conceptualised them quite differently.They have understood a group right as a right that is the shared orjointly held right of a set of individuals. In this conception, agroup right is still properly so-called because the individuals whomake up the right-holding group possess a right together that none ofthem possesses separately. The right is not a mere aggregation ofrights held individually by the members of the group. But, a groupright conceived in this way does not entail giving a moral status tothe group qua group that is separate from that of its membersseverally. Rather, the moral standing that underwrites the group rightis the moral standing of the several individuals who jointly hold theright. The group right is therefore conceived as “their”right rather than “its” right (Jones 1999a).

The distinction between these two conceptions has frequently passedunnoticed and there is no agreed vocabulary that marks it. The termcorporate will be used here to describe the traditionalconception, since that conception presents a right-holding group as aunitary entity. The termcollective will be used to describethe conception of a group right as a shared or joint right, since itconceives a right-holding group as a “collection” ofindividuals, albeit a collection that is bound together in a way thatenables them to hold their right collectively. (Note that, contrary tothis usage, many proponents of the “corporate” conceptionof group rights use the term “collective” to describethose rights; e.g. Galenkamp 1993, Jovanović 2012, McDonald 1991,Newman 2011.)

Joseph Raz has provided the most influential statement of thecollective conception. According to Raz, if a right is to be acollective right, it must satisfy three conditions:

First, it exists because an aspect of the interest of human beingsjustifies holding some person(s) to be subject to a duty. Second, theinterests in question are the interests of individuals as members of agroup in a public good and the right is a right to that public goodbecause it serves their interest as members of that group. Thirdly,the interest of no single member of that group in that public good issufficient by itself to justify holding another person to be subjectto a duty. (1986, 208)

Raz’s conception of a collective right is tied to his interest theoryof rights according to which, as we have seen, X has a right if X hasan interest that suffices to ground another’s duty (1986, 166). Thus,a group of individuals has a collective right if their shared interestis sufficient to ground a duty in others, and if the interest of anysingle member of the group is insufficient by itself to ground thatduty. When these conditions are satisfied, the group of individualspossess a right together that none of them possesses separately. Infact, Raz argues that the interests that ground a right are notnecessarily limited to the interests of the right-holder; they canalso include interests that others have in the right-holder’s havingthe right (1986, 245–63; 1994, 44–59; 1995). For example,the right of journalists not to disclose their sources is grounded notonly in their own interests but also in the public’s interest in theirhaving that right. That consideration can also apply to collectiverights. The rights of a group in respect of its culture, for example,might be grounded not only in the interests of the group’s members intheir culture but also in the interests of “outsiders” inthe continued existence of the group’s culture.

Some other theorists whose approach to group rights is consistent withwhat is described here as the “collective” conception areNathan Brett (1991), Allen Buchanan (1993, 1994), Leslie Green (1991),Vinit Haksar (1998), Lesley Jacobs (1991) and Seumas Miller (2001,2010). (See also Margalit and Raz 1990.) The collective conceptionneed not be tied to an interest theory of rights. Miller, for example,gives an account of the collective conception that owes nothing tothat theory (2001, 210–33). But the ascendancy of the interesttheory of rights in recent years has meant that those who have adoptedthe collective conception have frequently followed Raz in combining itwith the interest theory. (For criticism of the collective theory soconceived, see Griffin 2008, 261–265; Preda 2013.) Moreover,that theory does provide a ready-made account of what it is thatindividuals share—interests—that makes them aright-holding group. The way that interests can accumulate acrossindividuals also helps to explain how it is that a group ofindividuals can have a right, as a group, that none of them possessessingly. For Raz, the number of individuals in a group can affect bothwhether the group has a right and how weighty its right is (1986, 187,209). Others are less comfortable with that “aggregative”feature of Raz’s conception; yet the relevance of numbers is oftenhard to dismiss. Consider, for example, the claim of a linguisticminority that its language should be usable, and provided for, in thepublic domain. Given the public costs of meeting that claim, it wouldseem implausible to hold that we should take no account of the size ofa linguistic minority (of which there may be several) in decidingwhether the claim amounts to a right.

The fact that, on the collective conception, the individual members ofa group hold their right jointly does not entail that the right mustbe grounded in an interest that an individual could have as anindependent individual. Some goods take a necessarily collective form,so that they cannot be made available to an individual in isolationfrom others; for example, the good constituted by a group’s culture orits communal form of life. Yet it still makes perfect sense to holdthat a group right to those goods is morally grounded in the interestsof the several individuals who make up the relevant group and that theright is held jointly by those individuals. Thus, even though thecollective conception gives no moral standing to a group independentlyof its members, it can still account for groups’ having rights togoods that are necessarily non-individual in form.

At the same time, there is nothing in the logic of the collectiveconception that limits the possible objects of group rights tonon-individualizable goods. Nor, if we adopt the interest theory, needthe right-holding group be a group in virtue of anything other thanthe shared interest that grounds their right. The second conditionthat Raz stipulates for a collective right suggests that individualsmust be members of a group before they can go on to have interests ofa sort that might ground a collective right. Miller, too, makesmembership of a social group a defining condition of a joint right’sbeing a collective right (2001, 211). But it is not clear why weshould hold that a set of individuals can have a collective right onlyif they constitute a group in virtue of something other than theirshared interest.

Consider the following example. A city is characterised by very heavytraffic that poses a danger to its pedestrians. The city’s pedestrianshave an interest in there being a network of walkways so that they canmove around the city in safety. Each pedestrian, as an individual, hasan interest in those walkways, but the interest of just one pedestrianis insufficient to create a duty for the city authorities to constructthe walkways. However, the shared interest of all pedestrians may wellsuffice to ground that duty, in which case pedestrians will have acollective right that the authorities should construct and maintainthe walkways. The point of this example is not to insist that, inthese circumstances, pedestrians would indeed have that right. Ratherit is to show that (a) a group might have a right to a good that isintelligible as a good for an independent individual, and (b) aright-holding group need be a group only in virtue of the sharedinterest that grounds their right. The group need not beinstitutionalised as a group, nor need it be distinguished by a commonascriptive feature. (In the example given, the fact that theright-sharing individuals are identifiable as“pedestrians” contributes nothing to their having acollective right independently of their interest in being able to walkaround the city safely, .)

The collective conception can, then, make sense of group rights bothto goods that would be intelligible as goods for independentindividuals and to goods that are intelligible only as goods enjoyedcollectively with others. It is often supposed that, if a good takes anecessarily collective form (e.g. the collective good of possessing acommon culture), the interest in that good can be understood only asthe irreducible interest of a group. That is associated with thesupposition that, if the shared interest generates a group right, theright-holding group must also be understood as an irreducible moralentity. Both suppositions are mistaken. Even in the case of a sharedor collective interest, the interests that do the moral work ingenerating a right are entirely intelligible as the interests of theseveral individuals who make up the group and whose good is at stake.Similarly, the moral standing necessary for the individuals, as agroup, to have a right to the shared good can be the standing of theseveral individuals who compose the group. Thus, vindicating grouprights need not entail showing that the right-holding group has eitherinterests or a standing that is not reducible to those of itsmembers.

At the same time, there is a limit to the range of cases thecollective conception can encompass. As was mentioned earlier, therecan be cases in which the interest of a group logically precedes thatof its members and in which the members have interests simply because,qua members, they share in the interest of the group. For example, afootball club may have the stated aim of being as successful aspossible in playing against rival clubs. The club will then have aninterest in whatever will promote that aim, including fielding thestrongest team possible in each game. I, as a member of the club, willshare in its interests. So, for example, if it is in the club’sinterest to drop me from its team because I am not playing wellenough, that will also be in my interest qua member. That interest quamember may conflict with a personal interest that I have in remaininga team player, but arguably that does not disturb my interest quamember. If we understand the interest that grounds a group’s right asan interest that the group has independently of its members, and if weunderstand the members’ interests as mere derivatives of that groupinterest, we must understand both the interest and the right of thegroup according to the corporate model. The group right cannot beunderstood adequately as a product of the aggregated interests of theindividuals who populate the group (Newman 2011, 57–82).

For the same reason, the collective conception cannot easily makesense of a group right as a right possessed by a group whose identityis unaffected by changes in its membership. As Newman points out(2011, 59–60), if we conceive a group right as a right heldjointly by those who compose the group, each change in the group’smembership must entail a change in the identity of the right-holdinggroup. On the other hand, that may not be an objection. Groups, suchas cultural, linguistic, ethnic and religious groups, are oftenshifting amorphous entities and we may have to get used to the ideathat right-holding groups can be groups that have constantly changingcompositions. Practically, that may be of little consequence for grouprights provided that there is a reasonable continuity of interestamongst the group’s members, so that the content of the right is notdisturbed by every change in membership.

Finally, note three things about the distinction between corporate andcollective rights. First, the limits of the collective conceptionidentified above stem from its unwillingness to conceive a groupseparately from its members. They do not stem from an inability of thecollective conception to make sense of necessarily shared orcollective interests—interests that individuals can have onlyalong with others. Secondly, we can most readily conceive a groupseparately from its members when it is formally constituted as aninstitution, as in the case of a football club or a university. Butonce we separate a group from its members in that way, we run into theissue of whether we should really ascribe the right to an institutionor an organisation rather than to a group (Sheehy 2006, 159–167,175–195). Presumably it is for that reason that people do notnormally describe the rights of Congress or Parliament or the SupremeCourt as “group rights”. Thirdly, it is logically possibleto interpret some group rights as corporate and others as collective,so that we are not obliged to commit ourselves exclusively to just oneof these conceptions.

5. Group rights and collective goods

The distinction between corporate and collective rights concerns theway in which we might conceive thesubject of a group right.But the issue of whether there is reason to ascribe rights to groupsis sometimes approached through their possibleobjects—through what group rights might be rights to.If there are goods that have a necessarily group character and ifthere are rights to those goods, it would seem that those must begroup rights. So are there such goods?

The obvious place to start is with the economist’s idea of publicgoods. We might reasonably suppose with Raz (1986, 208) that a rightcan be a group right only if it is a right to a good that is public tothe members of the right-holding group. For the relevant group, thegood must be non-excludable (it must be available to all members ofthe group) and non-rival (its consumption by one member of the groupmust not diminish its possible consumption by other members). However,as Denise Réaume has pointed out (1988, 8–9), some goodsthat are deliverable only as public goods can reasonably be consideredobjects of individual rights. Clean air is a standard example of apublic good, but we can reasonably hold that individuals have rightsto clean air as individuals. An industrialist who seriously pollutes acommunity’s atmosphere might be held to violate the right to breatheunpolluted air of each individual in the affected community ratherthan a collective or corporate right of the community as a group.

Réaume’s own proposal (1988, 1994), which has attracted muchattention amongst commentators on group rights, is that we shouldunderstand group rights as rights to “participatorygoods”. A participatory good is a public good of a particulartype. It is a good whose enjoyment by an individual depends upon itsalso being enjoyed by others. Consider the case of clean air again.Although this is typically a good that is public to a group, eachindividual breathes in and out as an individual and enjoys the good ofclean air as an individual. The goodness of clean air for me does notdepend upon its also being good for you, even though it is good foryou. Now consider goods such as friendship, a team game, and aconvivial party (Réaume 1988, 12–13; Waldron 1993,355–6). Those are necessarily social goods. I cannot enjoygenuine friendship as an entirely individual good; I can play a teamgame only if others do too; and I can take pleasure in convivialityonly as a shared experience. So some goods are necessarily“participatory” in nature. These goods have also beendescribed as “communal” (Waldron 1993, 339–69),“shared” (Green 1988 207–9; Raz 1995, 35–6),and “common” (Marmor 2001). Charles Taylor’s notion of“irreducibly social goods” has been deployed to similareffect: if those goods are the objects of rights, their irreduciblysocial character implies that they must be the objects of group rights(Taylor 1995, 127–145; Sheehy 2006, 159–167,175–195).

Participatory goods are goods that must be both produced and enjoyedpublicly, and goods that are simultaneously produced and enjoyed bythose who participate in them. While participatory goods combineproduction with consumption, it is the necessarily public character oftheir enjoyment that really distinguishes them from other publicgoods. It is because they can be enjoyed only as shared goods that,Réaume argues, only groups can have rights to them. Her claimis not that every participatory good must be the object of a right;rather it is that, if there is a right to a participatory good, thatmust be a group right. The relevant right here is neither theliberty-right to participate in the good nor the claim-right to beunprevented by others from participating in the good, both of whichwill normally be individual rights. Rather it is a right to theparticipatory good itself (e.g. the right not merely to participate inan orchestra but the right of the orchestra to play as an orchestra,the right not merely to participate in a culture but the right thatthe culture shall be maintained and protected).

Some goods that can yield rights, and that are, Réaume argues,participatory in at least some of their aspects, are living in acultured society, sharing a common language, and being a member of areligious community. If groups have rights to these participatorygoods, do others have duties to provide them with those goods? If, forexample, a group has a right to its culture as a participatory good,that might imply that it is entitled to constrain the freedom of itsdissident members in ways that ensure the continuance of its culture.If a linguistic minority has a right to its language as aparticipatory good, that might imply that it is entitled to coercereluctant others to use its language in order to sustain and promotethe language as a participatory good. However, those are not the sortof rights that Réaume proposes since they would be unacceptablyonerous for those who bore the duty (1988, 16–17; 1994,133–4; see also Marmor 2001). Moreover, some participatory goodscan be the goods they are only if people participate in themwillingly.

The group rights that Réaume suggests might relate toparticipatory goods are rights against “outsiders” ratherthan “insiders”. And they would be rights not tooutsiders’ participation in the good, but to their non-prevention of,and their non-interference with, the group’s participatory good andperhaps also rights to measures and resources that will facilitate thegroup’s continued enjoyment of its participatory good. A linguisticminority may, for instance, have a right that the majority societyshould establish, maintain and respect arrangements that will securethe minority’s ability to continue using its language. Similarly, anindigenous minority may have a right that the majority society shouldinstitute arrangements that will protect its traditional form of life,which form of life is, for the minority’s members, a participatorygood. But these externally directed rights would remain rightsgrounded in the group’s interest in its participatory good and that,for Réaume, means they must be group rights.

There is an obvious gap in Réaume’s attempt to identify grouprights as rights to participatory goods (1994, 123–4). If onlygroups can have rights to participatory goods, it does not follow thatgroups can have rights only to participatory goods. They may also haverights to non-participatory goods, such as safe walkways or communityhealth safeguards or coastal defences. Even the claim that rights toparticipatory goods must be group rights has not escaped challenge.James Morauta (2002) argues that, conceptually, a participatory goodcould be the object of an individual right. An individual might, forexample, have a right to require others to participate with him inspeaking his language and those others may be duty-bound to comply ifhe so insists. That may be a morally unappealing state of affairs butnothing in the logic of rights or participatory goods rules it out(provided that the very nature of the good at issue does not requirevoluntary participation). The lacuna that Morauta identifies indicatesthat the proposition that only groups can have rights to participatorygoods relies upon more than just the “structural features”of those goods. It relies also upon a moral assumption about therelative standing of the individuals who have interests in, or who layclaim to, a participatory good.

Suppose, for example, that one person in a nation had, uniquely, aright that that nation should be self-determining. Hisfellow-nationals should then be part of a self-determining unit, notbecause they are entitled to be, but because he is entitled that theyshould be. He therefore has a right over their lives that theythemselves do not. Normally, we would regard that sort of inequalityin moral standing as entirely unacceptable; but it is because we takethat moral unacceptability for granted that we are predisposed toaccept that rights to participatory goods—or, indeed, rights topublic goodsas public goods—must be group rights. Ofcourse, people of equal standing can be unequally interested in a goodbut, in any sizeable group, it is most unlikely that one individual’sinterest in a good that is public to the group will be so special andso disproportionate that that individual will have, uniquely, a rightto the goodas a good for the group as a whole (Jones 2014,2018).

6. Scepticism about group rights

Criticism of group rights can take a case-by-case form. The criticmight argue that close inspection of particular rights commonlyclaimed as group rights reveals either that they are not rights at allor that they dissolve into individual rights (e.g. Griffin 2008,256–276; Lagerspetz 1998). However, much criticism is directedat the very idea of group rights. That criticism is generally of twosorts: either it is sceptical of the claim that groups can hold rightsor it is fearful of the implications or consequences of ascribingrights to groups.

Sceptics often object to the ontology of groups they take to beimplicit in the idea of group rights. To suppose that groups, likeindividual persons, can hold rights is to suppose that groups can havea being and an integrity that match those of individual persons. Butgroups are collections of individuals and to make them out to besupra-human entities that are somehow more than, or other than, thesum of their parts is mistaken: “only individuals can makedecisions, can literally have values, literally engage in reasoningand deliberation” (Narveson 1991, 334). Those who make andadminister the law may have good reason to create and to operate withfictions, such as the legal fiction of corporate personality. Butmoral rights and duties can attach only to real persons;“fictitious entities have no rights” (Graff 1994, 194).Groups do not exist separately from their members and, when we ascriberights to groups as such, we ignore that simple truth. (Narveson 1991,331–5; Wellman 1995, 157–77; cf Vincent 1989).

Doubts about the integrity of groups are sometimes sociological ratherthan ontological. Generally, we might suppose that the groups to whichwe ascribe rights have a unity and identity that is independent of,and that provides the foundation for, our ascription of rights tothem. A group, such as an ethnic or cultural group, has a certain“natural” existence and we recognise it as having rightsbecause of the kind of existent it is. In reality, however,pre-institutionalised groups are shifting and changing entities andlack clear boundaries. In addition, any section of humanity that wemight fasten upon as a group is likely to be part of a largersociological entity, and to have within it smaller entities, thatmight also claim to be “groups”. So there can be asignificant element of arbitrariness about the segments of humanitythat we identify as “groups”. We may suppose that, inascribing rights to a group, we merely acknowledge the entitlements ofa pre-existing entity, but, in reality, it may be the ascription ofrights itself that identifies, creates and fixes a segment of humanityas a “group”. (Flanagan 1985; Kukathas 1992, 110–15;Mitnick 2006; Offe 1998, 125–31; Waldron 2002. Cf. Mello 2004;Sharp 1999.)

Groups may be found improper subjects of rights because they lackproperties, other than genuine integrity, that are deemed essentialfor right-holding. As we have seen, proponents of the interest theoryof rights are able to view group rights more generously than those whoadhere to the choice theory, although the supposition that groups canhave interests has not gone unchallenged (Wall 2003, 273). Choicetheorists can extend rights to organised groups that possessdecision-procedures (Preda 2012; Sumner 1987, 209–211), but someargue that even those groups are incapable of the agency required forright-holding (Wellman 1995, 157–65; Wall 2000, 2003,270–6; cf. Nickel 1997). Again, if sentience is a necessarycondition of right-holding, that may disqualify groups asright-holders: “groups are composed of sentient individuals, butthey do not themselves feel anything” (Rainbolt 2006, 208. Seealso Kymlicka 1989, 241–2; Ellis 2005, 206–7. For acontrary view, see Graham 2002, 89–104).

More simply, sceptics often suppose that crediting groups with rightsentails ascribing groups irreducible moral standing as groups, astanding that the sceptics reject. They do not deny the reality ofgroups or their significance for human life but insist that, insofaras these give rise to rights, those rights can be adequately conceivedas rights held individually by the members of groups. Indeed, thatmust be so, since only individual humans can possess moral standingand only they therefore can possess moral rights. Michael Hartney(1991), for example, asserts “value-individualism”, theview that “only lives of individual human beings have ultimatevalue”; collective entities derive whatever value they have fromtheir contribution to the lives of individual human beings (297).Value-individualism, Hartney argues, precludes the possibility ofmoral group rights (see also Ellis 2005; Kukathis 1991; Narveson1991).

For the most part, scepticism about group rights presupposes acorporate conception of those rights. It challenges claims that agroup might have a being, status or value that is not reducible tothat of its members. But, since the collective conception makes noneof those claims, it is largely untouched by that scepticism. It isnot, however, exempt from other sorts of objection.

7. Fears of the implications or consequences of group rights

Worries about the moral implications or consequences of ascribingrights to groups relate not only to whether we should accept thatgroups have rights but also to how generously we should ascribe rightsto them. The common thread running through these worries is the threatthat group rights might pose to individuals and their rights.Sometimes the concern is for those inside, and sometimes for thoseoutside, the right-holding group.

One concern is that, if we give moral standing to groups as such, weshall lose sight of individuals within the group (Vincent 1989, 714).If a group can have standing as a group independently of itsindividual members, those individuals will have no standing on anymatter on which the relevant standing lies with the group. On thosematters, the separate wills of individuals cannot count. They will notbe overridden; they will simply pass unrecognised.

Another fear concerns the power that a group may wield over its ownmembers (e.g. Macdonald 1989; Offe 1998, 131–5; Waldron 1993,363–6). When we allow that a group has rights, those may berights that enable it to regiment the lives of its members. Thus, onceagain, group rights may function to the detriment of those who fallwithin the group. In one respect, that seems an unnecessarilyinvidious way of representing the relationship between groups andtheir members. There is nothing unusual about a group’s organisingitself so that it can make decisions collectively, either directly orthrough appointees, that bind its members severally. That describesthe normal state of affairs for tennis clubs, anglers’ associations,political parties, churches and any number of quite unremarkablegroups. The right of a group collectively to make decisions that bindits members severally is a simple description of democracy.

So why has there been so much angst about allowing that groups canhave rights over their members? The answer is that, in recent decades,group rights have been discussed primarily in relation to groups thathave involuntary memberships: groups that are distinguished by theirrace, ethnicity, culture, or language. People do not choose to bemembers of these “ascriptive” groups, nor can they easilyleave them as they might leave a club or association. If they find thegroup’s authority oppressive or its way of life intolerable, theycannot simply opt out, since their membership of the group is treatedby others—insiders or outsiders or both—as a natural“given” to which normal rights of entry and exit do notapply. That is why Will Kymlicka, for example, a liberal deeplysympathetic to the claims of cultural groups and indigenous peoples,is reluctant to allow that the rights of groups can be directedinwardly as restrictions upon the group’s own members, rather thanoutwardly as protections against the external world (Kymlicka 1995,34-48; cf. Marmor 2001).

Concerns about the potential for oppression implicit in group rightssometimes have an empirical dimension. Demands for group rights areoften looked upon most favourably when they are made by indigenouspeoples, cultural minorities and religious groups whose way of life isthreatened by external influences. But frequently, it is alleged, thereal effect of conceding rights to these sorts of group is toreinforce the power of conservative elites whose wishes and interestsclash with those of others in the group. Typically, an elite will wantto use its power to maintain the traditions and integrity of the groupand will be unwilling to tolerate dissent, deviance and demands forreform. It will also seek to maintain the position of those within thegroup who have traditionally been subordinate. This issue is oftendescribed as the problem of “minorities within minorities”(Eisenberg and Spinner-Halev 2005; Green 1994), but it can also be aproblem of majorities (e.g. women) within minorities. In short, whileaccording rights to a group may enhance the position of some of itsmembers, it may seriously diminish the freedom and well-being ofothers (Cohen et al. 1999; Deveaux 2000; Dick 2011; Kukathas 1992,113-15; Okin 2002; Shachar 2001; Tamir 1999, 158-64, 173-4). We shouldalso bear in mind, however, that withholding power from a sub-stategroup for that reason involves the assumption that the group’s memberswill be better served by the state’s authority than by the authorityof their group, an assumption that some would question (e.g. Holder2012).

A closely related fear concerns the potential of group rights to rivaland override the rights of individuals (e.g. Buchanan 1994; Caste1992; Graff 1994; Isaac 1992; Macdonald 1989, 126–7; Tamir 1999,161; Tesón 1998, 132–137). One of the strongestmotivations for ascribing rights to individual persons is to providethem with safeguards. Individuals as individuals are vulnerable tothose who wield power in all of its many forms and to the might ofnumbers. When we give rights to individuals, we provide them withmoral shields that protect them from the excesses of power, includingexcesses of collective power. But, if we ascribe rights to groups, wemay discover that their rights override the rights of individuals, sothat rights lose their potency as safeguards for individuals. When therights of a mighty group come up against those of a mere individual,Goliath rather than David may more frequently emerge as thevictor.

That concern is shared by List and Pettit (2011, 170–85). Whilethey hold that group agents as group persons should possess rights,they also subscribe to value (or “normative”)individualism, the view that something is good only if it is good forindividual human beings or non-human sentient beings (182). On theirview, value-individualism provides reason not to abandon group rights(as Hartney, 1991, alleges) but to curtail the scope of those rights.Group persons should have only rights that will redound to the benefitof individual persons, be they members or non-members of the group.Given the well-known dangers posed by asymmetries of power betweengroups and individuals, we should accord groups a more limited set ofrights than we accord individuals, though we have no reason similarlyto curtail the responsibilities we assign groups. (For other views onvalue-individualism and the curtailing of group rights, see Hindriks2014; Pasternak 2017; Rafanelli 2017; Smith 2018).

Group rights conceived collectively may seem less threatening toindividuals than group rights conceived corporately. Because, on thecorporate conception, a group has moral standing independently of itsmembers, its standing, will and interest can rival and override thoseof its individual members. A collective right by contrast, because itis held jointly by the individuals who make up the collectivity and isgrounded in their standing and interests, presents no similar danger.But fear of collective rights may still be provoked by the way inwhich those rights derive from the aggregation of individualinterests. As we have already seen, on Raz’s conception of collectiverights, numbers count. Numbers affect both whether groups have rightsand how weighty their rights are (1986, 187, 209). Others are loath toaccept that rights can derive from, or be affected by, that sort ofaggregation (Réaume 1988, 2003; Tamir 1999, 166–71). Incontemporary philosophy, rights-thinking is commonly opposed tomaximizing consequentialism, of which utilitarianism is the primeexample. Ascribing rights to individuals is a way of acknowledgingtheir separateness as persons and of safeguarding them from theaggregative excesses of utilitarianism. But if the aggregation ofinterests can yield collective rights, a morality of rights may beginto assume the character of, and to present the same dangers as, thevery sort of utilitarian thinking that many rights-theorists intend itto preclude, especially for those outside the right-holding group.

8. Group rights and individual rights: co-existence and complementarity?

A number of things might be said in response to these worries. First,very much depends upon the content that we give group rights. It ispossible to invest individual rights with a content that would makethem unsavoury, but that would not discredit the very idea ofindividual rights; similarly, the possibility that we might find somegroup rights objectionable is no reason to dismiss group rightsaltogether. Secondly, it would seem strangely arbitrary, given themoral significance that we give to rights, to insist that the objectsof rights can be only goods that individuals can enjoy as independentindividuals and never goods they can enjoy only in association withothers. Some theorists of rights seem to think just that. But wecannot take for granted that no good, whose shared nature was suchthat it could be the possible object only of a group right, could everhave the significance that would justify its actually being the objectof a right.

Thirdly, there is no reason why individual rights and group rightsshould not both figure in our moral thinking. Indeed, they commonlydo. For example, it would be entirely commonplace to hold that apeople, as a political unit, has a collective right to beself-determining but only within the limits set by individuals’ humanrights. Group rights do not have to clash with individual rights and acomplete moral theory would articulate individual rights and grouprights so that they formed a coherent set (cf. Buchanan 1994; DeFeyter and Pavlakos 2008; Holder and Corntassel 2002; Jones 2018). Itmay prove impossible to anticipate and avoid every conflict amongstrights, but, even if it does, we need not suppose that conflicts willarise more commonly between group rights and individual rights thanamongst individual rights themselves (McDonald 1998; Waldron 1993,203-24).

There is also a well-established tradition of political thought,associated particularly with Alexis de Tocqueville and the EnglishPluralists, which sees the existence of groups as essential to thedispersion of power and maintenance of liberty within a society.According to that tradition, groups do not glower threateningly atindividuals. Rather, the rights of groups help to counter and hold incheck a potentially overmighty state. (Stapleton 1995; Lustgarten1983. See also Frohnen 2005 and Gedicks 1989.)

Group rights and individual rights can, then, co-exist more or lesspeacefully, but it is also possible for them to enjoy a more positiveand mutually supportive relationship. Raz has pointed out thatindividual rights frequently presuppose the existence of generalsocial goods and individual rights themselves frequently promotesocial goods (1986, 193–216, 245–263; 1995). Indeed,individual rights may sometimes be rights only because they promotesocial goods. Raz does not claim that those social goods are generallythe objects of group rights, but he does expose the error of supposingthat an antagonism towards collective considerations is somehow builtinto the very idea or purpose of individual rights. The interests thatgroup rights and individual rights seek to protect will frequently bethe same interests.

Indeed, it may sometimes be an individual right that makes the casefor a group right. We might argue, for example, that some of the goodsto which individuals have rights depend for their realisation upon thehealth of the communities and cultures to which those individualsbelong, so that there is a case for individuals sharing in grouprights because those rights serve their individual rights or theirindividual freedom (Jacobs 1991; Kymlicka 1989, 1995; Wellman 1999).Or we might argue that individuals have equal rights to the conditionsof self-development, that individual self-development requires commonor joint activity, and that that makes the case for group rights tothe conditions necessary for that common or joint activity (Gould2001). Or, again, we might hold that amongst the range of optionsrequired for individual autonomy are joint options, options to pursueends that require co-ordinated activity with other members of one’sgroup; that too may justify group rights, such as the right of a groupto control its own affairs (Wall 2007). The claim here might be eitherthat a group right is conducive to, or, more strongly, that it isessential for, the realisation of an individual right.

Newman too argues that some individual rights presuppose group rights(2011, 76-82). His general analysis of the relationship betweenindividual and group rights is both nuanced and qualified (2011, PartII). As we have seen, he conceives right-holding groups as havingrights grounded in their interests as groups, interests that are notreducible to the interests of their members taken severally. Even so,he insists that group rights must be consistent with the“humanistic principle”, which holds that what mattersultimately is the well-being of individual human persons. In thatrespect, he is, like List and Pettit (2011), a value-individualist andnot, like Jovanović (2012), a value-collectivist. A group rightcannot ultimately be in competition with the well-being of the group’smembers. He formulates that requirement as “the serviceprinciple”: if the claims a group makes upon its members are tobe legitimate, those claims must serve the interests of the group’smembers. He pairs that with a “mutuality principle”: aright-holding group cannot act without regard for the well-being ofoutsiders, be they individuals or other groups. The service principledoes not, however, translate into the familiar claim that individualrights must invariably displace group rights. People have interestsboth as individuals and as group members and sometimes their interestsas members may matter more than their interests as individuals. Newmantherefore cautions against supposing that compliance with hishumanistic principle means that group rights must always take secondplace to individual rights.

9. Group rights and human rights

In seeking to reconcile group rights and individual rights, should wetake a further step and deem some group rights to be human rights?Some international human rights documents already suggest that weshould. The preambles to the UN’s Covenants on Civil and PoliticalRights (1966) and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966)characterise the rights each Covenant recognises as human rights. Thefirst articles of both Covenants ascribe to all “peoples”the right of self-determination, the right freely to dispose of theirnatural wealth and resources, and the right not to be deprived oftheir means of subsistence. These are manifestly group rights but forthe Covenants they would also seem to be human rights. The UNinstrument that recognises collective human rights most expressly andabundantly is its Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,2007. The rights the Declaration announces include, for example, therights of indigenous peoples “to maintain and strengthen theirdistinct political, legal, economic, social and culturalinstitutions” (art.5), their right that their cultures shall notbe destroyed (art.8), and their right not to be forcibly removed fromtheir lands and territories (art.10).

The mere existence of these international instruments does not, ofcourse, establish that the ascription of human rights to groups iseither conceptually coherent or morally defensible and, for the mostpart, drafters of UN human rights documents have studiously avoidedany suggestion that human rights might be other than individuallyheld. For many commentators, human rights are necessarily and only therights of human individuals; groups may possess rights but they willnot be human rights (e.g. Donnelly 2013, 45–54; Graff 1994;Griffin 2008, 256–76; Jovanović 2012, 166–195; Miller2002; Nickel 2007, 163–167; Nordenfelt 1987; Waldron 1993,339–69). Others insist that some goods that are fundamental tohuman well-being are collective in nature and an adequate theory ofhuman rights would accommodate that reality and recognise group aswell as individual human rights (e.g. Beitz 2009, 181–186;Casals 2006; Crawford 1988; Felice 1996; Freeman 1995; Holder 2006;Jones 1999b, 2013; Kymlicka 2001, 69–90; Malik 1996; Mende 2018;Thompson 2015).

Where we stand on this issue may turn on what we understand a humanright to be. The orthodoxy among moral and political philosophers hasbeen that human rights are moral rights which individuals possess invirtue of their humanity. If we opt instead for a purely legalconception of human rights (e.g. Buchanan 2013; Macklem 2015), thequestion of whether group rights might be human rights may be settledby legal fiat: if law declares a group right to be a human right, ahuman right it will be. Similarly, if we adopt a“political” conception of human rights, according to whicha right is “human” not because it is grounded in ourhumanity but in virtue of the role it plays, or should play, ininternational political practice (e.g. Beitz 2009; Rawls 1999; Raz2010), group rights will figure among human rights if they arereckoned suitable for that role. But, if we stick with the traditionalmoral conception of human rights and take the adjective“human” seriously (e.g. Griffin 2008; Tasioulas 2007;Wellman 2011), the possibility of group human rights remainscontroversial. Human beings are individual beings so that, if humanrights are rights we hold as human beings, they would seem to be ofnecessity individual rights. Moreover, the misgivings many peopleentertain about the potential of group rights to rival and threatenindividual rights are likely to be all the greater if the rights weascribe to groups are human rights which might match and override thehuman rights of individuals.

The main count on the other side of the argument is that many goodsthat matter to human beings are collective in nature and many that arealready well-established objects of individual human rights havecollective dimensions. Consider, for example, collective acts ofworship or other shared expressions of religious faith, or provisionfor a minority’s language in public documentation and public signage.If these collective goods are objects of human rights, those rightswould seem to be of necessity group rights. UN documents sometimesseek to avoid that conclusion by distinguishing between the possessionand the exercise of human rights. Individuals may exercise some humanrights “in community with others” rather than individuallybut the rights theyexercise together will still be rightstheypossess individually. But that distinction can bedifficult to maintain (Jones 2018, 2020). If, for example, apopulation engages in an act of collective self-determination, thatact is not intelligible as the simultaneous exercise of so manyindividually-held rights of individual self-determination; the act isa collective act with a collective outcome and the right to perform itcan only be a group right. Similarly, a right to perform an integratedact of worshipas an integrated act makes sense only as agroup right. Individuals may possess individual rights to participatein the collective act but the right to stage the act of worshipas a collective act will be a group right. If, with theVienna Declaration (1993, Part II, para. 22), we deem the human rightto freedom of religion to include the right of religious communitiesthat their sacred sites shall not be desecrated, that too would seeminescapably to be a group right.

The distinction between the corporate and collective conceptions ofgroup rights is of first importance here. A group right corporatelyconceived is a right held by the group as a corporate entitypossessing moral standing as that entity. It is a right borne by anentity other than a human being and is therefore not plausibly a humanright. A group right collectively conceived is a right held byindividuals, but a right held by those individuals jointly rather thanindividually. So understood, a group right is readily intelligible asa human right. Of course, not all collective rights will be humanrights, just as not all individual rights are human rights. But aright need not fall outside the domain of human rights just becausethe individuals who hold it do so collectively rather thanindividually.

What then of fears that ascribing human rights to groups will be tothe detriment of individuals and their human rights? If we ascribehuman rights to groups understood as corporate entities, those fearsare easily understood since potentially we pit the rights of twodifferent entities, groups and individuals, against one another. But,if we ascribe human rights to groups understood as collectivities, wedo nothing of the kind since the individuals who hold human rightscollectively will be the same individuals as those who hold humanrights individually. The task of the human rights theorist will thenbe to structure the entire set of human rights so that, for all whohold them, they constitute a morally optimal and compossible set.

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• International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, United Nations, 1966.
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, United Nations, 1966.
• Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, United Nations, 2007.

Related Entries

agency: shared |civil rights | collective-self-determination |intentionality: collective |legal rights |nationalism |responsibility: collective |rights |rights: human |social ontology