Q.Rights place some limits on the authority of the state. Explain with examples.

Rights are not only claims individuals make on the state — they also place real limits on how far state authority can go. …

Rights specify both what the state must do and what it must not do, and this dual obligation is itself a real limit on state authority. Take the right to life: it obliges the state to make laws protecting a person from injury by others and to punish those who cause harm; if a society understands the right to life as including a right to a good quality of life, the same right pushes the state toward policies on a clean environment and other conditions necessary for a healthy life — the state cannot simply ignore these obligations.

Rights also tell the state what it must refrain from doing, which is an even more direct limit on its power. My right to liberty means the state cannot simply arrest me whenever it pleases. If it wishes to detain me, it must justify that action — it must produce an arrest warrant before taking me away, and it must give its reasons for curtailing my liberty before a judicial court. This is a genuine constraint: the state's power to use force against a citizen is not unlimited, but is conditional on following a lawful process that can be checked by a court. …