Natural Law and

Human Rights
Theory
 Cicero Thomas John Locke
(106 BC) Aquinas (1632)
(circa 1225)
 Marcus Tullius Cicero
Born: January 3, 106 BC
Died: December7, 43 BC (age 63)
- Defender of the RomanRepublic
- a Roman orator, lawyer, statesman
and philosopher.
- He wrote on what he believed to be the ideal form of
government.
- In 56, he wrote 2 important books on government. -
*The Law
*The Republic
 In The Laws , Cicero explored his
concept of natural law. Law is the
highest reason. He wrote implanted in
nature w/c commands and forbids the
opposite. Thus natural is the guide for
right and wrong in human affairs
 In the Republic, he argued that
laws are not enough for a just state.
There also must liberty.
 Natural Law – The History

The Greeks -- Socrates, Plato, and

Aristotle emphasized the distinction
between "nature" (physis, φъσις) and
"law," "custom," or "convention"
(nomos, νуμος).
What the law commanded varied
from place to place, but what was
"by nature" should be the same
everywhere.
 Aristotle (BC 384—322)

-is considered by many to be the father

of “natural law.” In Rhetoric, he
argues that aside from “particular” laws
that each people has set up for itself,
there is a “common law” or “higher
law” that is according to nature
(Rhetoric 1373b2–8).
Centuries later, St. Thomas would
express this same notion by saying
that if our natures were different,
our moral obligations would be
different.
For over two thousand years, the
greatest minds in Western culture
agreed that there are universal laws
bases on human nature against which
the laws of a particular king or ruler
or legislature have to be judged.
The use of natural law, in its various
incarnations, has varied widely through
its history. There are a number of
different theories of natural law,
differing from each other with respect
to be role that morality plays in
determining the authority of legal
norms.
ST. THOMAS OF AQUINAS ON
THE NATURAL LAW
ST. THOMAS OF
AQUINAS
 1225-1274
He lived in Dark Ages

• Saint, Philosopher, Priest

• Italian Dominican
theologian
• one of the most influential
medieval thinkers of
Scholasticism
• The father of the Thomistic
school of theology.
St. Thomas of Aquinas returns to the view
that natural law is an independent reality
within a system of human reason
approaching (but never fully
comprehending) God’s eternal law (and
thus needing supplementation by God’s
divine law).
Law is a dictate of reason
from the ruler for the
community he rules.
 Eternal law

is the ideal type and order of the universe

(kosmos) pre-existing in the mind of God
 Natural law
It is evident that all things partake somewhat of
the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being
imprinted on them... Wherefore it (human nature)
has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has
a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and
this participation of the eternal law in the rational
creature is called the natural law."
 Human law

refers to “the more particular determinations of

certain matters devised by human reason
 Divine law
refers to Special Revelation -- the will of God as revealed
in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. This
law was necessary for four reasons: (1) humans need
explicit divine guidance on how to perform proper acts;
(2) uncertainty of human judgment needs a check; (3)
humans need divine insight on issues on which they are
not competent to judge; and (4) it proves that God will
punish some deeds that even go beyond the ability of
human law to punish.
HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
LAW
“international Magna Carta
for all men everywhere”
Eleanor Roosevelt
• As chair of the United
Nations of Human Rights
Commission, once defined
it.
• Proposed to the world by
the year 1945-1948 after
World War II but there are
several treaties before it that
inspired the Human Rights
Law
 Cyrus The Great
• UN pinpoints the works of
Cyrus The Great in Babylonia
(539 BC) as the origin of
Human Rights
• Freed the slaves, declared that
all people has the right to
choose their own religion, and
established racial equality.
King John of England
• The Magna Carta is seen as one
of the most influential legal
documents in British history
• It was introduced by some of
the most notable barons of the
thirteenth century in an act of
rebellion against their king,
King John I (24 December 1199
– 19 October 1216).
 John Ruggie
• Professor John Ruggie of
Harvard University served as the
UN Special Representative for
Business and Human
Rights from (2005-2011).
• Established specific
implementations of the Magna
Carta on the elimination of
trade-union freedom and forced
labour.