POSITIVE LAW AND NATURAL LAW. Historically, two quite different kinds of law have been invoked in rights discourse: POSITIVE LAW : The kind of law that is enforced, by institutions such as the police & judiciary. On this count, a citizen can enforce his/her claim rights through the civil or, in some circumstances, the criminal courts. Whether or not these rights are adequate or easy to enforce is, of course, debatable, the key point is that …showed first 75 words of 617 total…

…showed last 75 words of 617 total…positive law does not and cannot. Rights established by positive law are critical in the sense that they may allow one to argue that a particular social institution is not working in the way that it ought to, but they are less useful when, as is too often the case, a social institution is working exactly as intended, but the intention itself is oppressive. Positive legal r! ights provide no basis for an ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**