... along with other selected publications. As there is no clear cut definition to the term human rights, the various definitions of human rights will be discussed extensively in the following section of this essay. Definitions and Origin What are human rights? The Chinese and Westerners have different definitions of this term and what it encompasses. According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, human rights are "The basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life, liberty, freedom of thought and expression and equality before the law (http://www.dictionary.com, 2000). On the other hand, Liu Hainan defined human rights as the "rights that man enjoys and is entitled to enjoy on the basis of his natural and social properties. He also added that human rights are restricted by social, economic and cultural development" (Baehr, Hoof, Liu, Tao and Smith 1996, p.17). His views ...

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