22.1 The Meaning Of "Human Rights"
From Human Rights by LJM Cooray (1996)

The term "human rights" is a relatively modern invention. It covers under its umbrella three different types of rights:

1. the fundamental freedoms or classical civil liberties,
2. ethnic and religious rights
3. socio-economic rights.

Some constitutions have enumerated the first or the first and the second and attempted to set up judicial enforcement of such rights. The third category has not been stated in a constitution in an enforceable form, but some constitutions refer to them as directive principles of state policy.