HISTORY
OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The concept of human rights first emerged in the thirteenth century
in England. After King John violated a number of ancient laws and customs by
which England had been governed, his subjects forced him to sign the Magna Carta, or Great Charter in
1215, which enumerates a number of what later came to be thought of as human
rights. Among them were the right of the
church to be free from governmental interference, the rights of all free
citizens to own and inherit property and be free 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. When the
English drafted the Magna Carta, their intent was to develop a legal system
that would no longer be based on an individual ruler's system of laws, but a
system of laws that even a ruler would have to abide by.
The political and religious traditions
in other parts of the world also proclaimed what have come to be called human
rights, calling on rulers to rule justly and compassionately, and delineating
limits on their power over the lives, property, and activities of their
citizens. The great
religions of the world - Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism,
Islam, and others - have all sought to establish comprehensive, coherent moral
codes of conduct based on divine law. All contain profound ideas on the dignity
of the human being , and are concerned with the duties and obligations of man to
his fellow human beings, to nature and indeed to God and the whole of creation.
This issue
of human rights became a tremendous cause in 17th century England. The
protection of the people's rights (especially the right to political
participation, and freedom of religious belief and observance) against an
oppressive government was one of the most important goals of the English
Revolution of 1640 (which led to rebel leader Oliver Cromwell heading the
government, and the King being executed). It was also the reason for the
rebellion against the civil administration - the 'Glorious Revolution' - of
1688 which saw another King on the throne, but also led to the English Bill of
Rights
The Bill of
Rights dealt with the fundamental concerns of the time. It made the King
subject to the rule of law, like any citizen, instead of claiming to be the
law's (divine) source. It required the King to respect the power of Parliament
- elected by the people, with the power to control the state's money and
property. It protected some basic rights to justice - excessive bail or fines,
cruel and unusual punishments and unfair trials: it guaranteed juries,
impartial courts and independent judges. It repeated some of royal promises
made by King John, under duress, in the Magna Carta (though Magna Carta was intended to
benefit the privileges of the aristocracy of the time, not the whole
population). It also established the people's preferred Protestant religion, at
a time when having a Catholic King was thought to endanger the sovereignty of
England. The Pope, in those days, was still a relatively powerful ruler of a
foreign country.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, several
philosophers proposed the concept of "natural rights," rights
belonging to a person by nature and because he was a human being, not by virtue
of his citizenship in a particular country or membership in a particular
religious or ethnic group. It is believed that this concept has its authentic
origins in the in works of distinguished English philosopher from seventeenth
century John Locke.
John Locke
The term natural rights eventually fell
into disfavor, but the concept of universal rights took root. Philosophers such
as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and Henry David Thoreau expanded the
concept. Thoreau is the first philosopher I know of to use the term,
"human rights", and does so in his treatise, Civil
Disobedience. This work has been extremely influential on
individuals as different as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther
King. Gandhi and King, in particular, developed their ideas on non-violent
resistance to unethical government actions from this work.
In the late 1700s, two historical events and two documents made
indelible contribution to the constitutional development of the concept of
human rights. In 1776, most of the British colonies in North America proclaimed
their independence from the British Empire in the U.S. Declaration
of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson.
Sadly, the
Declaration did not, in fact, extend human rights to all human beings. The
first US Constitution expressly preserved the institution of slavery and did
not recognize the equal rights of women. Many 'rights' were added to the US
Constitution over the next 150 years.
Thomas Jefferson
In 1789, the people of France overthrew their monarchy and
established the first French Republic. Later that year the National Assembly of
France adopted Declaration of the Rights of Man
and of the Citizen. Both Declaration of Independence and Declaration of the
Rights of Man proclaimed equality of all people before the law and other
inalienable rights and liberties.
For the last part of the nineteenth
and first half of the twentieth century, though, human rights activism remained
largely tied to political and religious groups and beliefs. Revolutionaries
pointed at the atrocities of governments as proof that their ideology was
necessary to bring about change and end the government's abuses. Many people,
disgusted with the actions of governments in power, first got involved with
revolutionary groups because of this. The governments then pointed at bombings,
strike-related violence, and growth in violent crime and social disorder as
reasons why a stern approach toward dissent was necessary.
Neither group had any credibility with
the other and most had little or no credibility with uninvolved citizens, because
their concerns were generally political, not humanitarian. Politically partisan
protests often just encouraged more oppression, and uninvolved citizens who got
caught in the crossfire usually cursed both sides and made no effort to listen
to the reasons given by either.
Nonetheless
many specific civil rights and human rights movements managed to affect
profound social changes during this time. Labor unions brought about laws
granting workers the right to strike, establishing minimum work conditions, forbidding
or regulating child labor, establishing a forty hour work week in the United
States and many European countries, etc. The women's rights movement succeeded
in gaining for many women the right to vote. National liberation movements in
many countries succeeded in driving out colonial powers. One of the most
influential was Mahatma Ghandi's movement to free his native India from British
rule. Movements by long-oppressed racial and religious minorities succeeded in
many parts of the world, among them the U.S. Civil Rights movement.
Learn more about history of
human rights by visiting the following Web sites:
Delaring Indipendence:
Drafting the Documents
