Human beings are organized within societies. These societies have proved to be essential for human beings because they have been able to guarantee their survival and their certain requirements. Though different societies tend to ensure the needs and rights of their people in different ways and to different degrees, they somehow make efforts that there are mechanisms in place for that purpose. Particularly, in the modern world the societies have developed systems that are focused on the rights of the people.   
However, to ensure such an arrangement, the societies have established rules of conduct. Unless people accept certain restraints and responsibilities towards each other, social life will not be possible. The conditions created by the state to ensure the security of the individual and property are generally known as rights. In other words, the sum total of the opportunities provided by the state for the development and expression of the individual’s personality are known as rights. Even though the rights aim at the development and enrichment of the individual they lead to the all-round development of social life because the development of the part automatically leads to the enrichment of the entire society.
Therefore, it is in the interest of the state to maintain rights. According to the latest and the most current view, state is a welfare or social agency and strives to guarantee the rights of the individuals dwelling in it. It is not merely concerned with the preservation of law and order but also expected to provide conditions to promote the maximum good of the maximum number of people. Rather, it aims at the welfare of all the members of the society and wants to make sure that the basic rights of citizens are provided to them without much trouble.
An individual cannot have any rights which go against public welfare. The Utilitarian fully supported this theory and propounded the principles of 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' Moreover, in order to counter the economic disparities between the rich and poor class people there has been economic theory of rights as well. This theory, mainly associated with the name of Marx, tries to interpret the rights in terms of the economic system prevailing in a country.
The law preserves the conditions which are conducive to the interest of the dominant economic class. According to this view during the feudal period the rights were essentially meant to promote the feudal interests just as in the present capitalist age they promote the interests of the capitalists. For the economically deprived people there are no rights. According to this theory there can be genuine rights for all the members of the society only under a socialist system.
In addition to these theories there are theories based on ethical and moral values and ideal concepts. The ideal theory of rights views the rights in purely moral terms and considers them essential for the moral development of the individual. Green described the rights as powers 'necessary to the fulfillment of man's vocation as a moral being.' This theory holds that an individual cannot realize his full stature without rights.
The rights enable the individual to develop his physical, mental and moral faculties to the maximum limit and ultimately contribute to the development of the society as a whole. Though the modern theories of rights have shortcomings but they have played dominant role in determining the basic rights of human beings.
Today, most of the states in the world agree that the basic rights of human beings include both moral and legal rights, whereas the legal rights include the civil rights, like right to life, right to family, right to property, right to freedom of speech and expression, right to form associations and move about freely, right to work, right to religion, right to equality and right to education, and the political rights, like the right to vote, the right to contest elections, right to public office, right to petition and the right to criticize government.
In the contemporary era when the world has been globalized and the politics has been internationalized, the theories and movements of rights have reached to all the corners of the world to provide the basic rights of the human beings. These endeavors try to facilitate human rights on the face of the barriers of economic and political incapacities and shortcomings of the national governments.
These rights are basically monitored by the international bodies and work under the umbrella of United Nations Organizations. Though the international movements and organizations play their roles to make sure that all the human beings are given their rights, at the same time it is necessary for the human beings to have complete awareness about their rights so that they are not violated.

The backward societies of the world are, in fact, lagging behind as far as the rights of their citizens are concerned. Afghanistan is one of the countries, where both the institutional and individual efforts have not been able to provide even the rudimentary requirements of life for its people. Therefore, it is imperative that the intentions behind those efforts should change or the nature of those efforts must improve so that the maximum benefit must reach maximum number of people.