[pp.int.general] Pirate Manifesto: status of internal ballots

[Richard M Stallman]

    I will not reiterate here the arguments why the "human rights" argument is 
    dangerous. I'll add another argument: if you feel that your human rights are 
    violated, go the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

When most people talk about human rights, they are talking about
a philosophical concept of an ethical imperative, an issue which
must be interpreted at the philosophical level.

When Reinier says "human rights", he means something totally different:
a certain European legal document and its requirements, which can be
enforced in that court.

When people raise the first, Reinier regularly responds talking about
the second.  Both subjects may be relevant to discuss here, but
mistakenly identifying them leads only to confusion.

    The ECHR has even blamed 
    the UN for not observing human rights! (according to UN regulations, people 
    associated with terrorist movements are put on a black list without the 
    right of a (fair) trial, which violates ECHR art. 6).

In this case, I think the UN is wrong and the EHCR is right.  When I
say this, I am speaking in terms of human rights as an ethical concept
over which neither the UN nor the EHCR has any authority.

If I understood them only in the legal sense Reinier speaks of, I
would be unable to go beyond repeating the EHCR's decisions.  I would
have no basis to say that the EHCR is wrong or (as in this case)
right.