Framing Competing Human Rights Claims: The Promise of Shared Social Citizenship

• Author: Lorne Foster and Lesley Jacobs
• Pages: 225-239

225

Chapter 8

Framing Competing Human Rights Claims:

The Promise of Shared Social Citizenship

Lorne Foster and Lesley Jacobs

A. Introduction

The practice of human rights in diverse societies like Canada

has become more complex because diversity breeds competing

human rights claims. With increased diversity comes the ordeal

        

people should best lead their lives and what sorts of accommo-

dations should be made for persons with different beliefs out

of respect for human dignity and mutual recognition. Competing



The institutions at the core of the Canadian human rights

system — the courts and human rights commissions — are

currently struggling to respond to the challenges presented by

competing human rights claims in Canada. These challenges

are multi-dimensional, involving deep philosophical questions

about the nature of human rights, juridical questions about how

cases involving competing human rights should be judged and

decided, and policy questions about how in principle and practice

issues involving competing human rights should be framed and

approached in Canadian society.

This paper argues that the development of social policy for

addressing competing human rights claims should be built on

recognition that, even in a society like Canada that is character-

ized by a high degree of diversity, when persons press competing