The adequacy of the human rights concept

Human rights are fundamental rights in international relations. The concept of human rights is based on the fact that human rights are attributable to all humans, by the mere fact that they are human beings. Still, there are authors who challenge this concept. The aim of this paper is to present the most important theoretical stances on this issue and analyse the critiques of the existing human rights concept. The aforesaid goals were accomplished by applying the conceptual legal analysis, descriptive-qualitative method, inductive method and synthesis of the existing knowledge. By applying these methods, the paper attempts to answer the question if the existing concept of human rights is adequate. The research results indicate that the existing concept of human rights is, indeed, adequate. However, the analysis indicates certain weaknesses of the existing concepts, especially in terms of weak supervisory mechanisms over the implementation and fulfillment of the obligations arising from the human rights treaties, previously ratified by the State parties, which further raises the issue of the efficiency of treaties in terms of the main purposes of law. It was shown that the limitations of human rights, particularly when it comes to the facultative (optional) restrictions, tend to be abused due to frequently under defined terms of the restrictive clauses. Nevertheless, the existing case law of the European Court of Human Rights has shed more light on these terms and practically limited the will of the countries in that context. The results imply the need to implement stronger supervisory mechanisms over the human rights treaties, which inevitably calls for the political will of the international community.