The community of rights and the

The relationship between rights and responsibilities should be uncontroversial. It is clear that rights only make sense if there are corresponding responsibilities on others to protect, secure or realise those rights, and similarly responsibilities make no sense unless they are linked to rights; they only arise because some individual or group has a rights claim. Rights and responsibilities belong together, and neither can be adequately discussed without reference to the other. Ideological factors, however, have hindered this link from being made. Put simply, those on the political right have tended to mistrust the idea of rights extending beyond a narrow definition of property rights, and have preferred to emphasise responsibilities, duties or obligations; to them too much rights talk sounds dangerously socialist. Similarly, some on the political left, while comfortable with ideas of human rights as powerful drivers of apparently progressive policies, have seen dangers in talk of responsibilities or duties becoming coercive and leading to “blame-the-victim ” policies. It is the contention of this paper, however, that the link between rights and responsibilities is essential if a human rights framework is to prove useful for social workers, and other activists