The classic rights of the 18th and 19th centuries related to the freedom of the individual. Both the American and French Declarations were intended as systematic enumerations of these rights. The French Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen of 1789, as well as the French Constitution of 1793, reflected the emerging international theory of universal rights. The provisions of the Declaration of Independence were adopted by other American states, but they also found their way into the Bill of Rights of the American Constitution. These ideas were also reflected in the Bill of Rights which was promulgated by the state of Virginia in the same year. It also referred to certain inalienable rights, such as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The American Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 was based on the assumption that all human beings are equal. The people of the British colonies in North America took the human rights theories to heart. The term human rights appeared for the first time in the French Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen(1789). Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) elaborated the concept under which the sovereign derived his powers and the citizens their rights from a social contract. Locke, for instance, developed a comprehensive concept of natural rights his list of rights consisting of life, liberty and property. The ideas of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), one of the fathers of modern international law, of Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694), and of John Locke (1632-1704) attracted much interest in Europe in the 18th century. The Enlightenment was decisive in the development of human rights concepts. These two men laid the (doctrinal) foundation for the recognition of freedom and dignity of all humans by defending the personal rights of the indigenous peoples inhabiting the territories colonised by the Spanish Crown. Among the former, the work of Francisco de Vitoria (1486-1546) and Bartolomé de las Casas (1474-1566) should be highlighted. Spanish theologists and jurists played a prominent role in this context. In the centuries after the Middle Ages, the concept of liberty became gradually separated from status and came to be seen not as a privilege but as a right of all human beings. Freedoms were often seen as rights conferred upon individuals or groups by virtue of their rank or status. These documents specified rights which could be claimed in the light of particular circumstances ( e.g., threats to the freedom of religion), but they did not yet contain an all-embracing philosophical concept of individual liberty. The next generation of human rights documents were the Magna Charta Libertatum of 1215, the Golden Bull of Hungary (1222), the Danish Erik Klipping’s Håndfaestning of 1282, the Joyeuse Entrée of 1356 in Brabant (Brussels), the Union of Utrecht of 1579 (The Netherlands) and the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Cyrus the Great (576 or 590 BC - 530 BC) issued the Cyrus cylinder which declared that citizens of the empire would be allowed to practice their religious beliefs freely and also abolished slavery. During the 6th Century, the Achaemenid Persian Empire of ancient Iran established unprecedented principles of human rights. Human rights were henceforth seen as elementary preconditions for an existence worthy of human dignity.īefore this period, several charters codifying rights and freedoms had been drawn up constituting important steps towards the idea of human rights. Man/woman came to be seen as an autonomous individual, endowed by nature with certain inalienable fundamental rights that could be invoked against a government and should be safeguarded by it. In the Age of Enlightenment (18th century) the concept of human rights emerged as an explicit category. The origins of human rights may be found both in Greek philosophy and the various world religions. This chapter examines the concept of human rights and its origins, explaining the different terms and classifications. Human rights are commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being.
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