How have human rights developed?

The idea of human rights has its roots in Ancient Greek philosophy and in religion: All people are equal before God. Their development can be divided into three steps, which will be discussed in the following text:

Natural law philosophy has played an important role in the development of human rights. Indeed, the advanced subject of natural law is dedicated to this.

Further materials and advanced subjects on the historical section:

The idea of equality among people, as a natural right to which all people are entitled, was already developing in Ancient Greek philosophy over 2000 years ago. This tradition of a natural right was to develop further in early Christianity and in other religions: All people are created equal by God and in the image of God. These two concepts formed the roots behind the idea of human rights. Nevertheless, they had very little to do with political reality. While it is true that they made a universal claim, they represented a philosophical view, whose step-by-step transfer into the world of politics and law would first begin with the coming of the modern age.

John Locke considered life, freedom and property as being the unchanging natural rights of people. The purpose of all states is the protection of these natural human rights. His political philosophy, then, obliges the state to human rights and in doing so he makes an important step from the abstract idea of human rights to their firm implementation in the state. These thoughts were absorbed by those forming state constitutions in England and in the United States and were included in the constitutions of these two nations.

England played a pioneering role in this development. As early as 1215 in the ‘Magna Charta’ certain rights were gained from the king, the ‘Petition of Rights’ in 1628 secured the inviolability of the citizen and the ‘Habeas Corpus Act’ in 1679 represented the last decisive breakthrough in the firm embodiment of the idea of human rights in national law. The act served to protect the citizen against arrest without cause: Persons held under arrest had to be placed before the court within twenty days.

These rights also applied to England’s colonies, which included the United States of America. Indeed, it was in America during the fight for independence and with direct reference to the thoughts of John Locke that for the first time in history a catalogue of human rights was formulated, the "Virginia Bill of Rights" of 1776. This bill of rights along with the American Declaration of Independence from the same year are two of the most important documents in the history of human rights. Both of these documents are available as material and are worth taking a look at. The Virginia Bill of Rights adopted the following rights as being inalienable human rights and which have since formed the core of human rights:

The implementation of the human rights’ idea in continental Europe was to begin at a turbulent juncture in France. The French Revolution of 1789 with its paroles of “liberté, égalité, fraternité" had an enormous effect. The "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” was proclaimed in August 1789 (available on the material pages). It contains an emotional attempt to emphasize the validity of human rights. It concentrates initially, however, on the adoption of human rights in the respective national constitutions as basic rights, something that was achieved in almost all European nations during the course of the 19^th century. The political and legal implementation of the philosophical idea of human rights had been largely successful by the middle of the 20^th century.

The following problem, however, now arises: Human rights lay claim to universal validity, yet their binding embodiment in the basic rights meant that they were limited to the extent of national borders. This contradiction led to the initiation of a third offensive, an offensive aimed at universal political and legal implementation of human rights.

The terrible crimes committed during the Second World War, in particular, led to serious considerations about the establishment of universally valid human rights on a global scale. The awful events of this period were never to be repeated. Every person in the world was to possess basic rights and basic freedoms. Indeed, this was a major factor in the setting up of the United Nations. The uniting of all nations was to create a situation in which human rights were no longer purely a matter for individual nations, but rather a matter for the international community of states. This was put down in writing in an agreement drawn up between nations, the charter of the United Nations, which was signed on 26 June 1945.

The charter states that all member states oblige themselves both collectively and as individual states to work with the organization, in order to achieve the organization's objectives (article 56). The implementation of human rights makes up one of these objectives. Because of this article, each and every member of the United Nations, which today includes almost all of the world’s nations, is obliged to respect human rights. In order to make it clear exactly what the human rights are, the United Nations drew up the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, which was unanimously adopted on 10 December 1948. This declaration presents a list of human rights that in turn can be divided into several groups of rights and which will be covered in more detail in Basic course 3.

The ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ is available in its entirety as a document on the material pages. This declaration marks the beginning of attempts at universal political and legal implementation of human rights. Its aim is to eradicate the contradiction between universal claim and the national validity of human rights. This, however, is a long road, which can be clearly seen in Basic course 4, as we consider who is responsible for the monitoring of human rights and in Basic course 5, when we take a look at human rights violations. The advanced subject of world ethics considers the attempts at defining common universal values - a world ethic- during dialogue between religions and cultures. To this end, the aim is to dispel the doubt voiced by critics as to the universality of human rights, which they see as having arisen in Europe and being influenced by Christianity.

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