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world. Ideas about human rights have evolved over many centuries. But they
achieved strong international support following the Holocaust and World War II.
To protect future generations from a repeat of these horrors, the United Nations
adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. For the first time, the
Universal Declaration set out the fundamental rights and freedoms shared by all
human beings.
What is Human Rights ?
Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality,
place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any
other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination.
These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.
Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms
of treaties, customary international law , general principles and other sources of
international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of
Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to
promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or
groups. So, Human rights mention as
By born rights
Natural rights
Full freedom and autonomy of individual human being
Inalienable moral entitlement
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Ancient period
Ancient Greece (500 BC)
Socrates
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Right to Sustenance
Right to Work
Right to Privacy
Right to Protection from Slander, Backbiting, and Ridicule
Right to "The Good Life"
Enlightenment period
Thomas Hobbs
Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher in the 17th
century, was best known for his book Leviathan (1651)
and his political views on society. Many philosophers
and political theorists have believed that hobbs is
endowed with certain natural rights. Thomas Hobbes
analysis in Leviathan indicated that individual humans
had the natural right to survive.
Today, the term right is bantered about quite
commonly and in different ways. We have equal rights,
legal rights, prison riots, the right to life, and a right to
choose. Thomas hobbs defined four different generic types of rights:
Privileges, which are rights to do something and imply a guarantee that the
citizen be protected from the actions of others. For example, the right to
practice a religious belief is a guarantee that others will not persecute one for
this choice.
Immunities, which are rights to not do something and imply a guarantee of
freedom from burdens that one might otherwise face. For example, the
immunity from having to give evidence against oneself in court.
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Claims, which are rights that imply others will do something in your interest.
For example the right to repayment of a loan implies a duty on the part of
the debtor.
Powers, which are rights of an individual to deny usage to others. For
example, the right to a sandwich implies a power to deny others from eating
it.
John Locke
John Locke (1632-1704) was a British philosopher,
Oxford academic and medical researcher. Going
beyond Hobbes, however, John locke
identified fundamental and inalienable rights to life,
liberty and property. Thus the state has the function
of guaranteeing and upholding these natural rights of
man. When it fails to do so, it loses its legitimization.
Unlike Hobbes, Locke does not assign untrammeled
power to the state, insisting instead on the division of
power between the legislative (lawmaking) power and
the executive (law-enforcing) power. Later, Charles de Montesquieu (16891755)
would take up this idea and distinguish a third power, the judicative (law
interpreting) power. With Locke, the natural rights of the individual are superior to
the state, and so the individual can claim them as his/her personal rights over
against the state.
The ideas of John Locke had an important influence on the American Declaration
of Independence.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born June 28, 1712 in Geneva and died July 2, 1778 in
Ermenonville, France. He was one of the most important philosophers of the
French enlightenment.Rousseau Discussed Human Right in his Social Contract
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theory. Rousseau points out that right does not equal might. In other words, having
a right can never derive from force. A right must be
given legitimately which means it is attached to moral
and legal code. This makes it contractual whereby the
rights of one are applied to the rights of all. Once a right
is established, it is beneficial and necessary for the
individual to apply this right effectively for his best
interests and those of the whole. This motivation is
directed at the formation of community thereby creating
a social contract between individuals that come together
to act as a group.
Now a combination of rights is formed whereby each individual is protected by the
whole group that stands together as a community. The concept is that man standing
alone is more vulnerable than many men united each in defense of the other. This
condition makes it impossible for one to hurt an individual without hurting the
whole group or for one to hurt the group without affecting each individual.
There is now a social contract where individual rights are combined. In this case, it
is in the best interest of the individual to give over his rights to the group since he
has a more powerful protective base than standing alone
Thomas Aquinas
Saint Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic Priest in the Dominican Order and one of the
most important medieval philosophers and theologians. Although Thomas Aquinas
does believe in the existence of rights, he conceives of them in ways that are
significantly different from Enlightenment thought. When Thomas begins his
treatment of the virtue of justice in the Summa Theologiae Secunda Secundae, q.
57, a. 1, he starts with the question "whether right is the object of justice?" Since it
is obvious that he will answer "yes," it is misleadingly simple to believe that he
therefore is advocating rights. In fact, in the translation, there are two Latin word
which are translated as "right," and Thomas clearly sees a connection between
them, since one is in fact a species of the other. The two words are "rectum" and
"jus." The meaning of "rectum" is clearly the "morally correct" and has the sense
of "straight and true" in English. What is right in this sense, is the object of all the
virtues, and so is not special to justice, but insofar as justice concerns the ordering
of each person to others, there is a species of "rectum" that applies only to justice.
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protect him in the possession of it, either by the force of law, or by that of
education or opinion. If he has what we consider a valid claim, on whatever
account, to have something guaranteed to him by society, we say that he has a right
to it. If we desire to prove that anything does not belong to him by right, we think
this done as soon as it is admitted that society ought not to take measures for
securing it to him, but should leave it to change, or to his own exertions.
Thomas Paine
Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my
duty to guarantee as well as to possess.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an English and
American political activist, philosopher,
political theorist and revolutionary. He was
best known for his outstanding writing in the
book Rights of Man.
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Immanuel kant
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the
most influential philosophers in the history of
Western philosophy. His contributions to
metaphysics, epistemology, ethics,
and aesthetics have had a profound impact on
almost every philosophical movement that
followed him. Immanuel Kant (1724 1804)
examined the idea of human rights within
politics in such a way that it is only a
legitimate government that guarantees our
natural right to freedom, and from this
freedom we derive other rights. From this
basis it can be assumed that Kant looks at the
development, creation and implementation of
rights as primarily dependent on the state and
how the government within the state functions. Furthermore, Kant stresses that a
society can only function politically in relation to the state if fundamental rights,
laws and entitlements are given and enhanced by the state. As Kant teaches, these
righteous laws are founded upon 3 rational principles:
1. The liberty of every member of the society as a man
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2. The equality of every member of the society with every other, as a subject
3. The independence of every member of the commonwealth as a citizen.
It is common for Kant's rights-based liberalism to be contrasted with the
communitarian authoritarianism of the later Fichte and of Hegel, and it is the
concept of autonomy that is generally regarded as the theoretical fount of Kant's
theory of natural rights, providing the analytical link between Kant's moral
philosophy and his political and legal theory.
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856
February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the
United States from 1913 to 1921 and leader of
the Progressive Movement. When the European
nations went to war in August 1914, President
Wilson saw the conflict as a sign that the old
international system created by the Europeans had
failed. Now was the time for new leadership. Wilson
sought to create mechanisms for ensuring peace and
stability, and one of his concerns was for the peoples
of other nations. Wilson wanted to reconfigure the
old diplomacy and replace it with an open system, one based on cooperation and
communication. An ardent and eloquent advocate for liberalism, Wilson believed
that democracy should prevail as the system of political governance around the
world. In speaking to this issue time and again, he advocated the collective human
rights of peoples to determine their own fates. More specifically, he pledged
himself to the rights of eastern European peoples to choose their own form of
government as the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed at the end of the war.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the
preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired
movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.
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was sentenced to life in prison for his work in desegregation. He served 27 years
before being released.
In 1993, Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He became South Africas
first black president in 1994. The time for the healing of the wounds has come.
The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come, he said in his
acceptance speech. He then stepped down in 1999 for his deputy, Thabo Mbeki.
After suffering from a prolonged respiratory infection, Mandela died on 5
December 2013 at the age of 95. Though Mandela Left but he gifted us with a will
to fight for out rights till the end. As he saidIf you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you
talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
Cyrus the Great, the first king of Persia, freed the slaves of Babylon, 539 B.C.
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In 1971, the Cyrus Cylinder was described as the worlds first charter of human rights,
and it was translated into all six official U.N. languages. A replica of the cylinder is
kept at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City in the second floor
hallway, between the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council
chambers.
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Magna Carta, or Great Charter, signed by the King of England in 1215, was a turning point in human
rights.
In 1215, after King John of England violated a number of ancient laws and
customs by which England had been governed, his subjects forced him to sign the
Magna Carta, which enumerates what later came to be thought of as human rights.
Among them was the right of the church to be free from governmental
interference, the rights of all free citizens to own and inherit property and to be
protected from excessive taxes. It established the right of widows who owned
property to choose not to remarry, and established principles of due process and
equality before the law. It also contained provisions forbidding bribery and official
misconduct.
Widely viewed as one of the most important legal documents in the development
of modern democracy, the Magna Carta was a crucial turning point in the struggle
to establish freedom.
charters and asserted four principles: (1) No taxes may be levied without consent
of Parliament, (2) No subject may be
imprisoned without cause shown
(reaffirmation of the right of habeas corpus),
(3) No soldiers may be quartered upon the
citizenry, and (4) Martial law may not be used
in time of peace.
United States Declaration of Independence
(1776)
On July 4, 1776, the United States Congress approved the Declaration of
Independence. Its primary author, Thomas Jefferson, wrote the Declaration as a
formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence
from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American
Revolutionary War, and as a statement announcing that the thirteen American
Colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire. Congress issued the
Declaration of Independence in several forms. It was initially published as a
printed broadsheet that was widely distributed and read to the public.
Philosophically, the Declaration stressed two themes: individual rights and the
right of revolution. These ideas became widely held by Americans and spread
internationally as well, influencing in particular the French Revolution.
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Following the French Revolution in 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen granted specific
freedoms from oppression, as an expression of the general will.
The Declaration proclaims that all citizens are to be guaranteed the rights of
liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. It argues that the need for
law derives from the fact that ...the exercise of the natural rights of each man has
only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of
these same rights. Thus, the Declaration sees law as an expression of the general
will, intended to promote this equality of rights and to forbid only actions
harmful to the society.
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The Holocaust
The Holocaust is among the most systematic and blatant violations of human rights
in recorded history. It was rationalized by an elaborate Nazi doctrine which denied
the humanity of its victims: Jews, homosexuals, communists, Slavs. The shock
provoked by the cruelty of this unashamed dehumanization accelerated
international human rights legislation as no previous events had ever done. One
immediate result was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by
the United Nations in 1948, in which the connection between being human and
having rights was drawn for everyone. In the decades that followed, other charters
expanded these rights and the mechanisms for their enforcement.
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Declaration has achieved the status of customary international law because people
regard it "as a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations."
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Conclusion :
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We are living in an era of dramatic change and transition, in a world that is being
transformed by complex financial systems and revolutionary information
technologies into a vast global marketplace. Globalization is creating new patterns
of interaction among people and States, promising unprecedented opportunities for
material progress in larger freedom, but also threatening to compound many
existing challenges before the international community while deepening the
economic marginalization of those most vulnerable. In this complex scenario,
human rights, which were embedded formally at the United Nations as a great
international priority 50 years ago -- by means of the December 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights -- have gained prominence as a universally
recognized set of norms and standards that increasingly inform all aspects of our
relations as individuals and as collective members of groups, within communities
and among nations. There is now near-universal recognition that respect for human
rights -- the rights of political choice and association, of opinion and expression,
and of culture; the freedom from fear and from all forms of discrimination and
prejudice; freedom from want and the right to employment and well-being and,
collectively, to development -- is essential to the sustainable achievement of the
three agreed global priorities of peace, development and democracy.
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