Individual Rights

1. The concept of ‘individual right’ is one of the most important categories of modern law. The term ‘right’ is a translation from the Latin ius, although both in Roman law and in the Middle Ages the term ius was identified with the res iusta, the ‘just’ or the ‘right thing’ (see, eg, Gaius, Institutiones, II, 14; and Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 57, ad 1). In its modern sense (see Suarez, De Legibus, I, ii, 5), ‘right’ means power (potestas) or faculty (facultas), and it constitutes a moral attribute of the person (for a more detailed analysis, see Finnis...