Justice & Law Quote by Silvia Cartwright

Cartwright’s line lands like a polite indictment: the developed world congratulates itself on individual rights as if they were a moral achievement, while huge parts of the planet experience those rights as something closer to gated property. The phrasing matters. “Greatly prized” carries the faint aroma of a collector’s cabinet - rights treated as cherished objects, proof of refinement. Then she snaps the frame wider: elsewhere, rights are “considered a luxury,” not a birthright. That word choice isn’t accidental. Luxury implies scarcity, unequal distribution, and a market logic: you don’t demand luxury, you purchase it, you’re granted it, you display it.

The subtext is a critique of rights talk that ignores material conditions. Civil liberties on paper mean little without courts you can reach, police you can trust, media you can access, and time you can afford. By tying rights to the “impossibly wealthy,” Cartwright points to a familiar reality in fragile or unequal states: legal protection often travels with money, connections, and the ability to withstand retaliation. The “impossibly” is a barb - not just rich, but so rich the category becomes almost mythical, as if the average person is expected to live outside the circle of personhood.

As a statesman, she’s also doing diplomacy through moral contrast. The quote pressures affluent democracies to stop treating rights as settled trophies and start treating them as infrastructure - something that must be financed, defended, and extended. It’s a reminder that rights aren’t merely declared; they’re enforced, and enforcement is where inequality likes to hide.