Of course, my employer in paying me a salary, also has the right to demand that I work for that salary. Justice thus presupposes right. If I did not have a previous agreement with my boss to receive a certain sum of money in return for a concrete service, there would be no basis to bring justice into play on the issue. But not all rights are the result of one's work or the consequence of man's action. While some rights are the result of common agreement or convention, there are other rights which are more deeply founded in nature itself, in that which is usually referred to as natural law.
Natural law bears more weight than human convention.
Driving on the right, for instance, is a human convention and could be changed at any time. But the right to life is of natural law and cannot be revoked by any human agreement. He has to be accorded the respect which is due to his rational nature. This throws a great deal of light on the question of 'jungle justice' and man. To speak of inflicting the so-called 'jungle justice' in a human person implies reducing him to the level of an irrational animal.