Comparative law notes
Outside the context of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the phrase "absolute rights" has been more generally defined as legally enforceable rights to take or refrain from taking action at the sole discretion of the person having the right. Inasmuch as the German "Absolutrecht" is a universal right long recognized and developed under German law, it has unique attributes that are different that those rights with the same name under the ECHR. Thus, we recommend using the phrase "German absolute right" when first encountering the term in the source text being translated.
