Rethinking Human Rights through the Language of Capabilities: An Introduction to Capabilities Approach

Abstract

This paper seeks to contrast the language of human rights with capabilities approach conceptualized by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. While capabilities approach is an effective way of comprehending and mplementing the rights guaranteed to people, language of human rights remains the essential pre-requisite for the development and enhancement of people’s capabilities. While both these frameworks for justice operate within the western liberal paradigm, capabilities approach fills in the gaps of modern human rights discourse. The new idea of justice that accords a central place to human dignity mandates that the human rights entrenched in the Constitution be read as capabilities. The desperate vacuum that exists between the promises of law and realities of existence can only be bridged by institutionalizing a blend of rights and capabilities in the pursuit of justice. The paper argues that the language of human rights and that of capabilities ought to supplement and complement each other for true human flourishing