Individual rights

Individual rights are claims, freedoms, and protections held by persons, often enforceable against public authorities. They limit how governments may treat individuals and participate in defining legitimate public power.

Human rights: Rights regarded as belonging to every person, often independently of citizenship or national law. Individual rights are one way human rights are recognized and protected.
Negative and positive rights: A distinction between rights requiring restraint from interference and rights requiring affirmative provision or protection. It clarifies whether a right chiefly limits government or demands government action.
Magna Carta: A 1215 charter that imposed constraints on the English king and influenced later constitutional traditions. Its limits on royal power became an influential precedent for legal protections.
Natural rights: Rights understood as inherent in human nature rather than created by governments. This theory explains rights as prior constraints on public authority.
Freedom of speech: The right to express opinions and communicate information, subject to applicable legal limits. It shows how an individual right protects dissent and public debate.
Civil liberties: Freedoms that protect individuals from unjustified government interference. They are a central subset of individual rights, especially protections against state action.
Judicial review: The authority of courts to assess whether laws or official acts comply with higher law. Courts can use it to invalidate government measures that violate protected rights.
English Bill of Rights: A 1689 statute that restricted royal authority and affirmed parliamentary and individual protections in England. It helped establish a model of enumerated protections against government power.
Legal positivism: The view that law's validity depends on social sources and rules, not necessarily moral merit. It contrasts with accounts that treat rights as existing independently of enacted law.
Right to privacy: A right protecting personal life and information from unjustified intrusion. It limits state surveillance and can shape regulation of private data.

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