The term human rights indicates both their nature and their source: they
are the rights that one has simply because one is human. They are held by
all human beings, irrespective of any rights or duties individuals may (or
may not) have as citizens, members of families, workers, or parts of any
public or private organization or association. They are universal rights.

If all human beings have them simply because they are human, human
rights are held equally by all. ¹ And because being human cannot be re-
nounced, lost, or forfeited, human rights are inalienable. Even the cruelest
torturer and the most debased victim are still human beings. In practice,
not all people enjoy all their human rights, let alone enjoy them equally.
Nonetheless, all human beings have the same human rights and hold
them equally and inalienably.

What exactly does it mean to have a right? In English, "right" has two
principal moral and political senses.

"Right" may refer to what is right, the right thing to do. For example,
we say that it is right to help the needy and wrong (the opposite of right)

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