Though a thorough analysis of the Confucian approach to human rights would have to consider at greater length each of the Five Relationships in their complexity, for the purposes of illuminating better the aspect of the "sacred claim" involved in the Confucian perception of human rights as human rites, I will focus only on the last two of the Relationships, between elder and younger, whose paradigmatic virtue is li (propriety), and between friend and friend, which is to be characterized by hsin (fidelity).15 My choice of the last two Relationships rather than the First
Relationship (between ruler and ministers there is to be justice) may initially strike an odd chord