crushed and killed while trying to clear a jammed machine in the factory of a Chinese
supplier that was making products for the Walt Disney Company, the world’s second-largest
media conglomerate. 28 Witnesses claimed that the use of child labor was a human rights
violation that was common at the factory of Disney’s supplier.
On March 3, 2004, executives of Walt Disney, the world’s second largest media
conglomerate, were confronted with a group of stockholders concerned about the company’s
human rights record in China. Walt Disney markets merchandise based on its characters
and films, including toys, apparel, watches, consumer electronics and accessories. Much of
this merchandise is manufactured in China in factories that contract with Disney to produce
the merchandise according to Disney’s specifications. The Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, a group established by the U.S. Congress in 2001, reported in 2003,
however, “China’s poor record of protecting the internationally recognized rights of its
workers has not changed significantly in the past year. Chinese workers cannot form or join
independent trade unions, and workers who seek redress for wrongs committed by their
employers often face harassment and criminal charges. Moreover, child labor continues to
be a problem in some sectors of the economy, and forced labor by prisoners is common.” In
its March 2003 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. State Department said
China’s economy also made massive use of prison or forced labor.
In general, a right is a person’s entitlement to something; one has a right to something
when one is entitled to act a certain way or to have others act in a certain way towards
oneself. An entitlement is called a legal right. Entitlements can come from laws or moral
standards; the latter are called moral rights or human rights. They specify, in general,
that all humans are permitted to do something or are entitled to have something done for
them.
In our ordinary discourse, we use the term right to cover a variety of situations in which
individuals are enabled to make such choices in very different ways. First, we sometimes
use the term right to indicate the mere absence of prohibitions against pursuing some
interest or activity. Second, we sometimes use the term right to indicate that a person is
authorized or empowered to do something either to secure the interests of others or to
secure one’s interests. Third, the term right is sometimes used to indicate the existence of
prohibitions or requirements on others that enable the individual to pursue certain interests
or activities
The most important rights are those that impose requirements or prohibitions on others,
enabling people to choose whether or not to do something. Moral rights have three
important features defining them:
1. Moral rights are closely correlated with duties. If I have a right to do something,
then other people have a moral duty to not interfere when I do it.
2. Moral rights provide individuals with autonomy and equality in the free pursuit of
their interests, i.e., to pursue or not pursue the interest.
3. Moral rights provide a basis for justifying one’s actions and invoking the protection or
aid of others.
Moral judgments made on the basis of rights differ substantially from those based on utility.
First, they are based on the individual, whereas utilitarianism is based on society as a
whole. Second, rights limit the validity of preferring numbers and social benefits to the
individual. On the other hand, although rights generally override utilitarian standards, they
do not always do so. In times of war, for example, civil rights are commonly restricted for
the public good.
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