There are legal limits on which contracts are enforceable by law, and perhaps mandatory arbitration should be one of them. But there is always, in principle, the ability to waive one’s rights, because there’s no other logical way to voluntarily incur future obligations.
If you say I agree to go to arbitration that is an obligation. If you say I will never sue and must always go to arbitration that is final. That is removing the option to sue and adding in an obligation.
Every contract entails waiving your rights and removing future options. And tons of contracts include, as consideration, the agreement not to do something. Leases, for example. If you lease an apartment, you usually have an implied legal right to sublet; correspondingly, most landlords have a clause in the lease requiring you to waive that right, right next to the clauses requiring you not to get a pit bull or smoke cigarettes indoors or have somebody else living with you unbeknownst to the landlord.
Another example is exclusivity agreements: a shopping mall might sign a contract with Panera giving that Panera an exclusive right to sell sandwiches at that mall, which means the mall is agreeing not to lease a different retail space to Subway or Quiznos. What if they lease it to Qdoba and Panera thinks a burrito is a sandwich? That was a real lawsuit, which Panera lost, not on the grounds that it's impossible to incur a negative obligation by contract, but on the grounds that a burrito is not a sandwich: https://loweringthebar.net/2006/11/judge_rules_bur.html
There are legal rights that are protected to the extent that you cannot waive them and that any contract that entails such a waiver is an illegal and unenforceable contract. It's just that these rights tend to be explicitly stated as such in law, and the right to go to a court of law is not currently one of them. Maybe it should be, but that's a policy argument, not a fundamental argument of legal and moral principle the way you're making it out to be.
Yes. This is entirely about "legal rights". Why would you assume otherwise? And the right to go to court, the right for the law of the land to be applied, is a legal right, it may even be a human right. The US is lacking behind the world in legal and human rights, is the entire point of this thread.
That is a ridiculous overgeneralization.
Primarily in that it's still developing rather than stagnating.
> Ok, in the developed world. And it really isn't [a ridiculous overgeneralization that "the US is lacking behind the world in legal and human rights"].
Conveniently enough, I already have a list of counterexamples for Europe in particular:
* The United States also recognizes a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, which is not at all recognized in Italy, Greece, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland, and Northern Ireland.
* In terms of civil liberties, the US is virtually unique in recognizing an absolute right against self-incrimination and an exclusionary rule of evidence, where evidence collected in contravention of anyone's civil rights is admissible in court.
* One of the biggest controversies in recent American politics is whether to overturn the constitutional standard of jus soli birthright citizenship--the notion that any human being born on American soil is unconditionally an American citizen. No European country has this policy at all, let alone enshrined in a written constitution.
* The US does not have mandatory military service. However, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Norway, and Switzerland all do.
* Unlike many European countries, the US has a virtually complete lack of media censorship by the government.
* Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, and Bulgaria have all outlawed face coverings, while Switzerland has banned the construction of minarets. France prohibits the wearing or display of "conspicuous religious symbols" in schools, a law targeted at hijab-wearing Muslims. The United States has no equivalent laws, and any such laws would almost certainly be ruled unconstitutional.
If you're bringing in "the developed world", that might include countries with absolutely terrible human rights records like Qatar or UAE, as well as other undemocratic states like Singapore.
Also, I am pretty sure these are definitions and not interpretations. (According to the Oxford dictionary)
This is one of the silliest sentences I've read today. An obligation is you had to do something. While a right is something you can choose to exercise or not. With the right to be silent, you never waive that right as in they can never force you not to be silent. What you do is you exercise your right to be silent or you don't. You can decide when and if you speak.