Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- BBC - Arts and Ideas - Where Do Human Rights Come From?
- U. S. Department of State - Human Rights
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Human Rights
- ABC listen - By Design - Graphic design for human rights
- Council of Europe - Manual for Human Rights Education with Young people - What are human rights?
- Independent - How the Sharpeville massacre changed the course of human rights
- Cornell University Law School - Human rights
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Human Rights
- Social Sciences Libretexts - Human Rights
human rights
- What are human rights?
- Why are human rights important for everyone?
- What are some examples of basic human rights?
- What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
- How do countries help protect human rights?
- What happens when human rights are violated or ignored?
News•
human rights, rights that belong to an individual or group of individuals simply for being human, or as a consequence ofinherent human vulnerability, or because they are requisite to the possibility of a just society. Whatever their theoretical justification, human rights refer to a widecontinuum of values or capabilities thought toenhance human agency or protect human interests and declared to beuniversal in character, in some sense equally claimed for all human beings, present and future.
It is a common observation thathuman beings everywhere require the realization ofdiverse values or capabilities to ensure their individual andcollective well-being. It also is a common observation that this requirement—whether conceived or expressed as amoral or a legal demand—is often painfully frustrated by social as well as natural forces, resulting in exploitation, oppression, persecution, and other forms of deprivation. Deeply rooted in these twin observations are the beginnings of what today are called “human rights” and the national and international legal processes associated with them.
Historical development
The expressionhuman rights is relatively new, having come into everyday parlance only sinceWorld War II, the founding of theUnited Nations in 1945, and the adoption by the UNGeneral Assembly of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It replaced the phrasenatural rights, which fell into disfavour in the 19th century in part because theconcept ofnatural law (to which it was intimately linked) had become controversial with the rise oflegal positivism. Legal positivism rejected the theory, long espoused by theRoman Catholic Church, that law must be moral to be law. The termhuman rights also replaced the later phrase therights of Man, which was not universally understood to include the rights of women.
Origins in ancient Greece and Rome
Most students of human rights trace the origins of the concept of human rights toancient Greece andRome, where it was closely tied to the doctrines of theStoics, who held that human conduct should be judged according to, and brought into harmony with, thelaw of nature. A classic example of this view is given inSophocles’ playAntigone, in which the title character, upon beingreproached by King Creon for defying his command not to bury her slain brother, asserted that she acted in accordance with the immutable laws of the gods.
In part becauseStoicism played a key role in its formation and spread,Roman law similarly allowed for the existence of a natural law and with it—pursuant to thejus gentium (“law of nations”)—certain universal rights that extended beyond the rights of citizenship. According to the Roman juristUlpian, for example, natural law was that which nature, not the state, assures to all human beings, Roman citizens or not.
It was not until after theMiddle Ages, however, that natural law became associated with natural rights. In Greco-Roman andmedieval times, doctrines of natural law concerned mainly the duties, rather than the rights, of “Man.” Moreover, as evidenced in the writings ofAristotle andSt. Thomas Aquinas, these doctrines recognized the legitimacy ofslavery andserfdom and, in so doing, excluded perhaps the most important ideas of human rights as they are understood today—freedom (or liberty) andequality.
Theconception of human rights as natural rights (as opposed to a classical natural order of obligation) was made possible by certain basic societal changes, which took place gradually beginning with the decline of Europeanfeudalism from about the 13th century and continuing through theRenaissance to thePeace of Westphalia (1648). During this period, resistance to religious intolerance and political and economic bondage; the evident failure of rulers to meet their obligations under natural law; and the unprecedented commitment to individual expression and worldly experience that was characteristic of theRenaissance allcombined to shift the conception of natural law from duties to rights. The teachings ofAquinas andHugo Grotius on the European continent, theMagna Carta (1215) and its companion Charter of the Forests (1217), thePetition of Right (1628), and the EnglishBill of Rights (1689) in England were signs of this change. Each testified to the increasingly popular view that human beings are endowed with certain eternal and inalienable rights that never were renounced when humankind “contracted” to enter the social order from the natural order and never were diminished by the claim of the “divine right of kings.”
