Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen speaks at the inauguration of the SACEPS Task Force Meeting on A Citizen's Social Charter. Also in the picture from left, Eminent lawyer Dr Kamal Hossain, former Advisor to the Caretaker Government Justice Habibur Rahman, CPD Chairman Professor Rehman Sobhan and Srilankan Scholar Dr Godfrey Gunatilleke.

Professor Sen noted that history and evolution of human rights shows that there are two important prerequisites for the establishment of human rights in societies. First, to recognise the importance of freedom in societies and to understand that not supporting such a standpoint is intrinsically a moral failure. Once the pertinence of freedom and solidarity is recognised, the establishment of a framework for social justice becomes theoretically and socially viable. Arriving at the central point of his presentation, Professor Sen reminded the audience that legislation in itself is not the way to establish rights. He pointed out some examples in substantiation of the fact that legislation is bound to fail in the absence of the moral conscience that respects the rights of an individual. In this regard, social advocacy could make a significant contribution in ensuring human rights. Consequently, the feasibility of an authority to ensure rights did not have anything to do with their classification as fundamental rights. The right to go to school, for example, noted Professor Sen, was an inalienable right irrespective of whether the existing government education system encompassed all the rural communities in the country. If feasibility of ensuring such rights were to become the necessary condition, then a multitude of rights would lose cogency, Professor Sen pointed out.