Abstract
Many accounts of human rights embrace a minimalistic view of their nature and purpose: human rights protect against only the most severe denials of our fundamental interests. Human rights scholars and advocates who embrace minimalism tend to privilege political and civil rights, not only because these rights are understood to protect things that are universally important, but also because they are thought to be primarily negative and, thus, only modestly burdensome for duty-bearers. They are the moral bedrock, the 'true' human rights. However, when we attend properly to our needs for social access, social inclusion, and social acceptance as well as our interests in relations of intimacy, love, and friendship, to name but a few, we see that our social concerns are among our most elemental priorities, even though they have not yet been fully accommodated, and certainly not privileged, within human rights norms. In this chapter, we challenge that exclusion and argue that the inclusion of our social-connection rights - as basic rights - is a necessary dimension of any reasonable understanding of human rights minimalism.