Volume 2 Number 4 December 2003

In this paper, I will argue that Karl Marx has a critique of rights that is really a critique of a model of Man presupposed by negative rights (pp. 212-241)1. This critique of negative rights fails for two reasons. First, human rights theories have developed a great deal since Marx's time, and we now have positive rights that presuppose a different conception of Man from the one Marx envisaged. Alan Gewirth (1996) has offered such a theory. Second, I argue, negative rights are not based upon the model of Man that Marx thought. Third, Marx may not be critiquing rights as such, but merely the bourgeois manifestation of them. I shall initially consider the nature of Marx's critique before offering my response.

Twenty years after sexual harassment was declared illegal in the United States, debate is still raging over what it is, why it is against the law, and even whether it should be against the law. In this paper, I discuss current legal controversies over the meaning of sexual harassment in the U.S. Sexual harassment is technically against the law in the U.S. because it is defined as a form of gender discrimination in employment and education. However, in typical practice, only lewd and obscene behaviors have been singled out for punishment. In contrast, New Zealand defines sexual harassment as a violation of human rights. In this paper, I explain how this view compares with the legal approach to sexual harassment in the U.S. Next, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the New Zealand law. Framing sexual harassment as a human rights issue decouples it from the problem of gender domination. But as part of a strategy to enhance the dignity and respect of all workers, the human rights approach may offer greater protection from abusive employers.