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Abstract

Are human rights anarchic freedoms, permitting individuals absolute license to do and say whatever they want? If they ever were, have recent events, such as the covid crisis, reiterated the limitations on the exercise of personal freedoms? During the recent pandemic, individuals were obliged to wear a mask in public spaces. This was much less about protecting the mask wearer from contracting covid and much more about protecting others from catching the virus. The wearing of a mask was an obvious fetter on personal liberty, grounded in the mutual responsibility and duty of the ‘rights-holder’ and ‘rights-giver’. This chapter constitutes the introduction to the book, outlining its aims and objectives, as well as contextualising the originality of the work; the broad ideas of the book are situated within the recent covid pandemic, together with modern threats to collective wellbeing, such as neo-liberalism and globalisation.