去（2008）年筆者在本刊曾經為文指出，2008年臺灣人權有顯著倒退之狀況，很遺憾的是，今（2009）年臺灣的人權狀況並沒有明顯的改善，反而因為莫拉克颱風引發的災難，更讓人權處境雪上加霜。在這個背景下，特別值得探討的是，可以由這次的災難經驗中學習到災難與人權、民主以及法治有哪些關聯。 這其實是一個非常大的主題，甚至也可以獨立成為某種研究領域，因此本文僅能從「災難下的人權概念：基本權體系vs.生存訴求」、「人權受損的生活世界結構」以及「憲政體制失能」等幾個層面初步探討災難下之人權與法治問題。最後並指出，由於臺灣社會從1990年代之後就無法進行下一波的觀念與制度結構複雜度的提升，因此對災難的因應無方以及人權的連帶受累，也僅是一個必然會發生的附帶損害。

In an article published in this journal last year, I pointed out that there was a serious setback of democracy and human rights in Taiwan. Unfortunately, there has been no salient improvement this year, and the catastrophe brought about by typhoon Morakot has only made things much worse. Against this background, it is particularly worthy to study the questions of human rights, democracy and rule of law from the experience of this catastrophe. This is a huge subject deserving independent research. Therefore, in this short article I can only explore the questions concerning human rights and rule of law under catastrophe from the following perspectives: the human rights concept during catastrophe: the system of basic rights vs. human rights situation; human rights infringement on livelihood; and the malfunction of constitutional establishment. After the 1990s, Taiwan society as a whole has been unable to achieve the next wave of complexity in ideas as well as in institutions. Taiwan has also shown its incapability to respond to large scale disasters, during which human rights violation becomes only anticipated collateral damage.