Substantive rights
# Substantive rights

Substantive rights are basic human rights possessed by people in an ordered society and include rights granted by natural law as well as the substantive law. Substantive rights involve a right to the substance of being human (life, liberty, happiness), rather than a right to a procedure to enforce that right, which is defined by procedural law. Substantive rights are contrasted with procedural rights, which are purely formal rules of law that only prescribe how a law ought to be enforced, rather than defining the contents of a law.

