The foundation

[Malta Soron]

Nowadays the existence and validity of human rights is widely accepted (which is visible in e.g. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). However, I never hear someone mention a reason to do so, why there are such things as human rights, what it is that gives humans rights. (Even the U.S. Declaration Of Independence, which was drafted in an age in which one might expect a decent argumentation, starts with "We hold these truths to be self-evident".)
For myself I can think of a religious base of human rights, but I don't think most of you would accept that So, what do you think is the foundation of human rights?

[Vicsun]

This is a very difficult question to answer. So difficult, as a matter of fact, that countless books have been written on the topic by various philosophers trying to answer it. I don't have the time to go through the arguments in any sort of depth, so I'll instead leave you with the recommendation of reading some John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. In a nutshell, the argument goes to say that people have a natural right to follow their nature. The counter-argument is that any sort of rights are constructed by humans and as such artificial which suggests there is no such thing as natural rights or 'universal human rights'.

Defining universal human rights is pretty handy from a pragmatic point of view, though.