"The Rights Revolution has a double aspect: enhancing our right to be equal and protecting our right to be different. Trying to do both- enhancing equality while safeguarding difference- is the essential challenge of the rights revolution- Ignatieff sets out to prove this using six subject areas, some of which are "Democracy and Rights Revolution" , "Human Rights and Human Differences" and "Rights, Recognition and Nationalism. Within these examples, he uses many present day concerns and issues to highlight the points he is making. .
The best place in the world to analyse the Rights Revolution is Canada, as "Canada has become one of the most distinctive rights cultures in the world. Canadian Politics has often seemed like a psychodrama of narrowly avoided catastrophes- The drama has been caused by rights groups, such as feminists groups or even aboriginal rights groups. "These groups have forced their way to the table to enlarge both the process of constitutional change and its results." These changes took off with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his "desire to anchor Canadian unity in the quality of individual rights. This was not enough; rights groups wanted more for guaranteed collective rights. These collective and individual rights were forced into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our rights are unique in that they recognise both aspects of a society. The first aspect recognises that everybody should live peacefully together. The second aspect considers that due to our individual uniqueness not everybody can live peacefully together. Thus, the Charter has a method of breaking down the country into individual sections, to separate group differences, avoiding conflict if the need arises. This recognises that we all want to be equal while different at the same time. We each want to have our own individuality. .
Ignatieff discusses this more thoroughly in "Human Rights and Human Difference.