This right to collective self-determination entitles a group to limit the full exercise of its members’ human right to act as they wish whenever the group determines that this exercise endangers the identity of the group. That is, they wish to collectively define their own identity, including the identity of their individual members, according to the dominant views of the majority. Not only do they wish that their individual members be free from outside interference (free in the negative sense) but they wish to be freely self-determining as a group (free in the positive sense). However, groups often view their right to freedom of religion, association, and cultural expression in an entirely different way. Because these individual rights are exercised collectively (as a social practice) and exclusively (by members of a particular group only), they ensure that individual members of a particular group have the freedom to act (worship, associate, express themselves culturally) unhindered by outsiders. In these cases the right attributed to the group is understood as protecting an individually held human right to freedom of religion, association, or cultural expression. Other UN Conventions affirm the right of national minorities and indigenous people to cultural autonomy. Unless one believes that the only citizenship compatible with a universal human rights regime is cosmopolitan citizenship in a world state – a conception of citizenship that is not countenanced by the UDHR – one must interpret the human right to citizenship as a universal right to a particular group right. Article 15 asserts the right to nationality, or citizenship. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) says they do. Yet it is an important question whether human rights entail or comport with the possession of what I call group-specific rights (sometimes referred to as collective rights), or rights that individuals possess only because they belong to a particular group. Human rights belong to individuals in virtue of their common humanity.
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