Group Identity and Group Right

A group right is a right held by a group qua group rather than by its individual members, such as the identity of race, religion, class, and gender. Much of the debate that surrounds group rights is centred on whether a particular group can hold rights and, if they can, on what conditions that a group can claim to be a legitimate right-holder. Since a group right is a right possessed by a group qua group vis-à-vis a right held by an individual person qua an individual, a group identity or right becomes the key issue that needs to be identified and discussed. In this chapter, I will examine the human rights practice across the spectrum of group identities in the light of the Buddhist critique of self-identity and contend that the Buddhist concept of interconnectedness supports the rights claim as a general principle to promote personal freedom and communal flourishing but finds an identitarian way of thinking in terms of group-differentiated rights problematic.