An unwanted gift from a predecessor, parent or older sibling is derogated as a hand-me-down; a happier, lasting bequest is called a legacy with legs.
Arbiters of good usage resigned to being called "word police" have been denounced as wordinistas, just as nosy reporters have been derogated as scandalistas.
However, Martha Spurrier, the director of Liberty, argued that the majority of rights claims against the military were not vexatious, and were connected to protections which could not be derogated, such as prohibition of torture.
(The Viscountess Snowden, after a visit to Russia soon after World War I, wrote, "We were behind the 'iron curtain' at last!") In the United States, the undemonstrative first lady Rosalynn Carter was derogated (unfairly, in retrospect) as "the steel magnolia".
Farcical and dystopian acts like the arrest of six people for spilling custard during street theatre often prompt observations that events like the Olympics present a "state of exception" – where standard rights are derogated in order to facilitate a spectacle.
One is derogated by politicians as a "beauty contest" in which all voters choose among candidates of both parties; it's a kind of super-poll to indicate who will carry this overwhelmingly Democratic state in November.
It was derogated later that month as the "surly stagnation" of "an uncompetitive, economically weakened Russia" by a right-wing New York Times op-ed columnist under the headline "Putinism Looms".
I think it was a misusage: if the former first lady becomes the most powerful force in the Senate, then the elected leader of the Senate Democrats, Tom Daschle, would be derogated as merely the titular leader, which would imply that Senator Clinton held the real power.
As derogating is a somewhat extreme measure, whether or not a particular right may be derogated from, and under which circumstances, is usually laid down in the text of a human rights treaty.
However, it may be deduced that at least the minimum core of subsistence rights may not be derogated from, even during situations of public emergency threatening the life of the nation.
