This essay explores the moral limitations of human rights discourse by developing some comparisons with the discourse of justice. Having made important distinctions between human rights law and human rights morality, and analysing justice in its distinctive sense as a combination of equal worth and unequal worthiness, consideration is given to the content of human rights and justice values. Human rights law is contrasted with the overlapping but sometimes divergent discourse of justice with respect to its focus on liberty as opposed to equality, and its minimalism in contrast to the more aspirational discourse of justice. The essay concludes by considering the competing strategies of either expanding the content and form of human rights law at the risk of undermining the role of elected governments, or reaffirming justice as a prime duty of governments that transcends the commitment to human rights.