“Marx regarded the natural law approach to
human rights as idealistic and ahistorical. He
saw nothing natural or inalienable about human
rights. Concepts such as law, justice, morality,
democracy, and freedom are considered historical
categories whose contents are determined by the
material conditions of and the social circumstances
of a people. As the conditions of life change, so the
content of notions and ideas may change” (Shestack,
1998: 210). While the focal point of Marxism is
to recognize the contextuality of human rights
in terms of the conditions of a society, conceiving
human rights chiefly in a materialistic frame has
been one of its significant weaknesses.