A Right of Access to Law - or Rather a Right of Legality and Legal Aid?

Abstract

Human rights evolve continuously. Sometimes entirely new rights spring up, for example in response to technological developments. Most ‘new’ human rights, however, are refinements of existing rights, which somehow have come to be regarded as deserving protection in their own right. An intriguing question is when such new (aspects of) rights deserve to be formally recognised or even codified in international treaties or national constitutions. In these comments I will try to answer this question for the right that Simon Rice suggests should be recognised: the right of access to law. I will focus on the added value of recognising such a right, rather than dealing with its theoretical foundations.