Rights Beautiful Collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik or dismiss the significance of the constructive steps and process already taken up. In fact, similar line of thought seems to be implied in Prof. Vitit’s concept paper. I simply try to draw attention to it and further elaborate the point for the benefit of making our task concretely meaningful to the people we always refer to. In short, we need to help instill a keen sense of belonging into the society at large. Human rights, after all, are basically concerned with people as truly stake holders. Not only that, however. They are also closely related to the problem of social transformation. That is why the whole thing must needs be seen as a process. The truth is human rights are not something to come by or bestowed upon as free gifts. Historically, as we learn from the exemplary West itself, they always started out as moral claims by people in particular socio-economic contexts. There followed the struggles with of course either success or failure, depending on the circumstances involved. The same is true with the celebrated civil and political liberties that were achieved in the historical West and gained worldwide acclaims. In a most significant sense, of course, they represent a certain universal value. That is only part of the whole story, nonetheless. For there are bound to be many others forthcoming as human societies keep undergoing changes, as we all are witnessing today. It all means that, as far as human rights are concerned, what is popularly called universal is unfortunately something imposed and therefore tends to become static or even prohibitive.3 Universality of human rights is clearly a dynamic phenomenon and keeps on proliferating, especially with regard to economic, social, and cultural matters, according to the dynamics of social change. Indeed, it is the essence 3 In the classic statement by Jeremy Bentham, founder of Utilitarianism of 19th century England: Right … is the child of law; from real laws come real rights; from imaginary laws, from laws of nature, fancied and invented by poets, rhetoricians, and dealers in moral and intellectual poisons, come imaginary rights, a bastard brood of monsters. Cited in “The Politics of Human Rights”, The Economist, August 18-24, 2001, p.9. 4 OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF THAILAND