i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher Dr. Deepan Pandey
for giving me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful term paper on the topic “Origin and
development of human rights” which also helped in doing a lot of research and I came to know
about so many new things.

Secondly, I would also like to thank librarian for providing me with books which helped
me a lot in finalizing this project within the limited time period.

Bhaichung Bhutia

VII Semester

16GLB039
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ABSTRACT

Human Rights have become a established reality since the establishment of the United
Nations in 1945, which has, as its central concern, reaffirmed its faith in fundamental human
rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the fundamental human rights, in the
dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations at
large and small. Human rights are moral principle norms that describe certain standards of
human behavior and regularlity protected on natural and legal rights in municipal and
international law.

The history of human rights can be traced back over thousands of years ago. The United
Nations pinpoint the origin of Human Rights to the year 539BC. When the troops of the Great
conquered Babylon, Cyrus freed the slaves, declared that all people had the right to choose their
own religion, and established racial equality. The English Magna Carta, was a starting point of
democracy. There were many reasons which laid to the establishment of human rights. The main
aim of establishing human rights were to protect human beings from racial discrimination,
torture and so on. After second world war human rights subjected to be an established reality
which mainly focused in the protection of human beings from all kinds of discrimination in the
society.
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CONTENTS
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Human rights have become a established reality since the establishment of the United
Nations in 1945, which has, as its central concern, reaffirmed its faith in fundamental human rights,
in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations
large and small. The expression “human rights” denotes all those rights which are inherent in our
nature and without which we cannot live as human beings. In other words, human rights being
eternal part of the nature of human beings are essential for individuals to develop their personality,
their human qualities, their intelligence, talent and conscience and to enable them to satisfy their
spiritual and other higher needs. These are inalienable rights which belong equally to all members
of the human family and such, should belong equally to all members of the human family and as
such, should be protected by rule of law if a man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as last
resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression.

Human rights, as such, are incorporated in various International Human Rights

Instruments, such as, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights; regional human rights treaties, such as, the
European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the American Convention
on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the American Convention on Human Rights, the
African Charter on human and People Rights; subsidiary instruments, such as, the Helsinki Final
Act; and national constitutions, legislation and even judicial pronouncements. The range of human
rights, as contained in these instruments, treaties and national legislation is very wide and covers
variety of rights including civil and political rights on one hand and newly developed economic,
social and cultural rights, on the other .

The purpose of securing human rights as such are to provide protection to these rights
against the abuse of power committed by the organs of the state. To establish institutions for the
promotion of living conditions of human beings and for developmental of their personality: and at
the same time to provide effective remedial measures for obtaining redress in the event these rights
are violated. Karel Vasak has applied remarked that the “human rights” which are essentially
individual in character for they are meant to be enjoyed by individuals, constitute a social
phenomenon by virtue of those for whom they are intended.
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CHAPTER 2

MEANING OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality,
ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty,
freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and
education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Human rights are moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human
behavior and are regularly protected as natural and legal rights in municipal and international law.
They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently
entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings",
regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin, or any other status. They are
applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian
in the sense of being the same for everyone. They are regarded as requiring empathy and the rule
of law and imposing an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others, and it is
generally considered that they should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on
specific circumstances; for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful
imprisonment, torture, and execution.

The fundamental rights that humans have by the fact of being human, and that are neither
created nor can be abrogated by any government. Supported by several international conventions
and treaties (such as the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human rights in 1948), these
include cultural, economic, and political rights, such as right to life, liberty, education and equality
before law, and right of association, belief, free speech, information, religion, movement, and
nationality. Promulgation of these rights is not binding on any country, but they serve as a standard
of concern for people and form the basis of many modern national constitutions.

Human rights are those rights which we enjoy by virtue of being member of human family.
In simple term human rights are those basic rights without which human beings cannot live as a
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human or Human right is a generic term and it embraces civil rights, civil liberty and social
economic and cultural rights.

Human rights are commonly understood as being those rights which are inherent in the
mere fact of being human. The concept of human rights is based on the belief that every human
being is entitled to enjoy her/his rights without discrimination. Human rights differ from other
rights in two respects. Firstly, they are characterized by being:

• Inherent in all human beings by virtue of their humanity alone (they do not have,e.g., to be
purchased or to be granted);

• Inalienable (within qualified legal boundaries); and

• Equally applicable to all.

Secondly, the main duties deriving from human rights fall on states and their authorities or
agents, not on individuals.

One important implication of these characteristics is that human rights must themselves be
protected by law (‘the rule of law’). Furthermore, any disputes about these rights should be
submitted for adjudication through a competent, impartial and independent tribunal, applying
procedures which ensure full equality and fairness to all the parties, and determining the question
in accordance with clear, specific and pre-existing laws, know to the public and openly declared.

The idea of basic rights originated from the need to protect the individual against the
(arbitrary) use of state power. Attention was therefore initially focused on those rights which oblige
governments to refrain from certain actions. Human rights in this category are generally referred
to as ‘fundamental freedoms. As human rights are viewed as a precondition for leading a dignified
human existence, they serve as a guide and touchstone for legislation.
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CHAPTER 3

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The origins of human rights may be found both in Greek philosophy and the various world
religions. In the Age of Enlightenment (18th century) the concept of human rights emerged as an
explicit category. 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. Human rights were henceforth seen as elementary preconditions for an
existence worthy of human dignity.

Before this period, several charters codifying rights and freedoms had been drawn up
constituting important steps towards the idea of human rights. During the 6th Century, the
Achaemenid Persian Empire of ancient Iran established unprecedented principles of human rights.
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.
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 Handfaestning of 1282, the Joyeuse
Entrée of 1356 in Brabant (Brussels), theUnion of Utrecht of 1579 (The Netherlands) and the
English Bill of Rights of 1689. 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. Freedoms were often seen as
rights conferred upon individuals or groups by virtue of their rank or status.

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. Spanish
theologists and jurists played a prominent role in this context. Among the former, the work of
Francisco de Vitoria (1486-1546) and Bartolomé de las Casas (1474-1566) should be highlighted.
These two men laid the (doctrinal) foundation for the recognition of freedom and dignity of all
 5

humans by defending the personal rights of the indigenous peoples inhabiting the territories
colonised by the Spanish Crown.

The Enlightenment was decisive in the development of human rights concepts. 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. Locke, for instance, developed a comprehensive concept of natural rights; his list of
rights consisting of life, liberty and property. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) elaborated the
concept under which the sovereign derived his powers and the citizens their rights from a social
contract. The term human rights appeared for the first time in the French Declaration des Droits
de l’Homme et du Citoyen (1789).

The people of the British colonies in North America took the human rights theories to heart.
The American Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 was based on the assumption that all
human beings are equal. It also referred to certain inalienable rights, such as the right to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. These ideas were also reflected in the Bill of Rights which was
promulgated by the state of Virginia in the same year. 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. The French Declaration 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. Both the American and French Declarations were intended as systematic
enumerations of these rights.

The classic rights of the 18th and 19th centuries related to the freedom of the individual.
Even at that time, however, some people believed that citizens had a right to demand that the
government endeavour to improve their living conditions. Taking into account the principle of
equality as contained in the French Declaration of 1789, several constitutions drafted in Europe
around 1800 contained classic rights, but also included articles which assigned responsibilities to
the government in the fields of employment, welfare, public health, and education. Social rights
of this kind were also expressly included in the Mexican Constitution of 1917, the Constitution of
the Soviet Union of 1918 and the German Constitution of 1919.

In the 19th century, there were frequent inter-state disputes relating to the protection of the
rights of minorities in Europe. These conflicts led to several humanitarian interventions and calls
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for international protection arrangements. One of the first such arrangements was the Treaty of
Berlin of 1878, which accorded special legal status to some religious groups. It also served as a
model for the Minorities System that was subsequently established within the League of Nations.

The need for international standards on human rights was first felt at the end of the 19th
century, when the industrial countries began to introduce labour legislation. This legislation -
which raised the cost of labour - had the effect of worsening their competitive position in relation
to countries that had no labour laws. Economic necessity forced the states to consult each other. It
was as a result of this that the first conventions were formulated in which states committed
themselves vis-à-vis other states in regard to their own citizens. The Bern Convention of 1906
prohibiting night-shift work by women can be seen as the first multilateral convention meant to
safeguard social rights. Many more labour conventions were later to be drawn up by the
International Labour Organisation (ILO), founded in 1919. Remarkable as it may seem, therefore,
while the classic human rights had been acknowledged long before social rights, the latter were
first embodied in international regulations.

The atrocities of World War II put an end to the traditional view that states have full liberty
to decide the treatment of their own citizens. The signing of the Charter of the United Nations
(UN) on 26 June 1945 brought human rights within the sphere of international law. In particular,
all UN members agreed to take measures to protect human rights. The Charter contains a number
of articles specifically referring to human rights (see II§1.A). Less than two years later, the UN
Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), established early in 1946, submitted a draft Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The Assembly
adopted the Declaration in Paris on 10 December 1948. This day was later designated Human
Rights Day.

During the 1950s and 1960s, more and more countries joined the UN. Upon joining they
formally accepted the obligations contained in the UN Charter, and in doing so subscribed to the
principles and ideals laid down in the UDHR. This commitment was made explicit in the
Proclamation of Teheran (1968), which was adopted during the first World Conference on Human
Rights, and repeated in the Vienna Declaration and Pogrammme of Action, which was adopted
during the second World Conference on Human Rights (1993).
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Since the 1950s, the UDHR has been backed up by a large number of international
conventions. The most significant of these conventions are the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR). These two Covenants together with the UDHR form the International Bill of
Human Rights. At the same time, many supervisory mechanisms have been created, including
those responsible for monitoring compliance with the two Covenants.

Human rights have also been receiving more and more attention at the regional level. In
the European, the Inter-American and the African context, standards and supervisory mechanisms
have been developed that have already had a significant impact on human rights compliance in the
respective continents, and promise to contribute to compliance in the future. These standards and
mechanisms will be discussed in more detail throughout this book.
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CHAPTER 4

THREE GENERATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

There are three overarching types of human rights norms: civil-political, socio-economic,
and collective-developmental (Vasek, 1977). The first two, which represent potential claims of
individual persons against the state, are firmly accepted norms identified in international treaties
and conventions. The final type, which represents potential claims of peoples and groups against
the state, is the most debated and lacks both legal and political recognition. Each of these types
includes two further subtypes. Scholar Sumner B. Twiss delineates a typology:

Civil-political human rights include two subtypes: norms pertaining to physical and civil
security (for example, no torture, slavery, inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrest; equality before the
law) and norms pertaining to civil-political liberties or empowerments (for example, freedom of
thought, conscience, and religion; freedom of assembly and voluntary association; political
participation in one’s society).

Socio-economic human rights similarly include two subtypes: norms pertaining to the
provision of goods meeting social needs (for example, nutrition, shelter, health care, education)
and norms pertaining to the provision of goods meeting economic needs (for example, work and
fair wages, an adequate living standard, a social security net).

Finally, collective-developmental human rights also include two subtypes: the self-
determination of peoples (for example, to their political status and their economic, social, and
cultural development) and certain special rights of ethnic and religious minorities (for example, to
the enjoyment of their own cultures, languages, and religions). (1998: 272)
 9

This division of human rights into three generations was introduced in 1979 by Czech jurist
Karel Vasak. The three categories align with the three tenets of the French Revolution: liberty,
equality, and fraternity.

First-generation, “civil-political” rights deal with liberty and participation in political life.
They are strongly individualistic and negatively constructed to protect the individual from the
state. These rights draw from those articulates in the United States Bill of Rights and the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in the 18th century. Civil-political rights have been
legitimated and given status in international law by Articles 3 to 21 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Second-generation, “socio-economic” human rights guarantee equal conditions and

treatment. They are not rights directly possessed by individuals but constitute positive duties upon
the government to respect and fulfill them. Socio-economic rights began to be recognized by
government after World War II and, like first-generation rights, are embodied in Articles 22 to 27
of the Universal Declaration. They are also enumerated in the International Covenant on
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

Third-generation, “collective-developmental” rights of peoples and groups held against

their respective states aligns with the final tenet of “fraternity.” They constitute a broad class of
rights that have gained acknowledgment in international agreements and treaties but are more
contested than the preceding types (Twiss, 2004). They have been expressed largely in documents
advancing aspirational “soft law,” such as the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development, and the 1994 Draft Declaration of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights.

Though traditional political theory presents liberty and fraternity as inherently antagonistic
(and therefore would assert the incompatibility of “collective-developmental” rights with the
preceding generations), progressive scholars argue that the three generations are in fact deeply
interdependent. For example, Twiss argues that no single generation can be emphasized to the
exclusion of others without jeopardizing personas and communities over time, including
jeopardizing the very interests represented in the type or generation of rights being privileged.
(1998: 276). He offers examples of self-defeating imbalances that would result from the excessive
prioritization of any one generation over another:
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… to emphasize civil-political rights to the exclusion of socioeconomic and collective-

developmental rights runs the risk of creating socially disadvantaged groups within a society to
the degree of triggering disruption, which, in turn, invites the counter response of repression. To
emphasize socioeconomic rights to the exclusion of civil-political rights runs the risk of ironically
creating a situation where, without the feedback of political participation, the advancement of
socioeconomic welfare comes to be hampered or inequitable. To emphasize collective-
developmental rights to the exclusion of other types runs the risk of not only fomenting a backlash
against civil-political repression but also of under-cutting the equitable distribution of the
socioeconomic goods needed for the continuing solidarity of the society. (1998: 276)

Twiss rejects alleged incompatibilities between the three generations of rights. He asserts
that, at worst, there may by tension between such rights in specific societies and at periods of
socio-historic transition, but this does not mean tensions cannot be solved in a way that respects
all three generations of rights. Human rights are so thoroughly interconnected that it is difficult to
conceive of them as operating properly except in an interdependent and mutually supportive
manner (1998: 276).
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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

The Human Rights are the one side of a coin that gives them their desire freedom and the
other side is the responsibility which they have to pay in return of these freedom. For example, if
we have the human right to live safely, so it’s also our responsibility not to suffer other life. Human
rights is also a politically constructed concept: who define, who get benefit, who lose, whose voices
are heard, whose voices are silenced.

Developing and mainstreaming human rights into national law are not simply a regular
legislation process, yet there are driving forces both internal and external factors: social, political,
economy, ideology, security, matters, etc.

Protecting human rights is an important goal for every individual and for society as a whole.
The human rights commission staff workhard to ensure compliance with human rights laws. The
Commission also works to help the public gain a better understanding of the importance of
protecting all people from violation of their human rights.

Therefore, we should consider this right as a motivational for us to do good deeds and help
others, while we still have it.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY