That interpretation of rights is not universal and in my experience seems to be a philosophy mainly coming from the US (presumably reinforced by the language in the American bill of rights). I view rights as describing the actual (implicit or explicit) contract between a people and their government, not as an absolute metaphysical or moral concept. In my view, a person in a developed nation has a stronger right to clean water than a person in an impoverished nation as statement of fact observable from the effort their government goes to to ensure they have clean water. I prefer this view of rights divorced from morals because it lets a population pressure their government for rights based on what they want rather than getting bogged down on whether it is morally right to e.g. have access to guns or silence in criminal proceedings.