INTRODUCTION

The Concept of human rights is as old as the human race. These rights have their roots in
antiquity. The roots for the protection of the human rights may be traced as far back as in the
Babylonian laws, Assyrian laws and in the dharma of the Vedic period in India.

Writings of the Plato and other Greek and Roman Philosophers also depict for the protection of
human rights though they had a religious foundation. The City state of Greece gave equal
freedom of speech, equality before law, right to vote, right to be elected to public-office, right to
trade and right of access to justice to their citizens. Similar rights were secured to the Roman by
the Jus Civil of Roman law.

The Magna Carta granted by King John of England to the English barons on June 15, 1215
ensured feudal rights and dues and to guarantee that the King would not encroach upon their
privileges. The Carta was buttressed in 1628 by the Peririon of Rights. The concept of human
rights is as old as the ancient doctrine of natural rights‘ founded on natural law, the expression
human rights‘ is of recent origin and has emerged after the Second World War.

….ADD ABOUT POSITIVE LAW

EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Documents asserting individual rights, such the Magna Carta, 1215, the English Bill of Rights
1689, the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789, and the US Constitution
and Bill of Rights 1791 are the written precursors to many of today’s human rights documents.
Yet many of these documents, when originally translated into policy, excluded women, people of
color, and members of certain social, religious, economic, and political groups. Nevertheless,
oppressed people throughout the world have drawn on the principles these documents express to
support revolutions that assert the right to self-determination. Some of these documents are
discusseed below;

1.1.The Birth of the United Nations

The idea of human rights emerged stronger after World War II.1 Governments then committed
themselves to establishing the United Nations, with the primary goal of preventing international
peace and preventing conflict. Therefore, a meeting was held in San Francisco meeting that
drafted the United Nations Charter in 1945.

1.2 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Member states of the United Nations pledged to promote respect for the human rights of all. To
advance this goal, the UN established a Commission on Human Rights and charged it with the
task of drafting a document spelling out the meaning of the fundamental rights and freedoms
proclaimed in the Charter. The Commission, guided by Eleanor Roosevelt’s forceful leadership,
captured the world’s attention.

On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the
56 members of the United Nations. The vote was unanimous, although eight nations chose to
abstain. The UDHR, commonly referred to as the international Magna Carta. The influence of
the UDHR has been substantial. Its principles have been incorporated into the constitutions of
most of the more than 185 nations now in the UN.

1.2 The Human Rights Covenants

With the goal of establishing mechanisms for enforcing the UDHR, the UN Commission on
Human Rights proceeded to draft two treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and its optional Protocol and the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Together with the Universal Declaration, they are commonly
referred to as the International Bill of Human Rights.

1.3 Subsequent Human Rights Documents

In addition to the covenants in the International Bill of Human Rights, the United Nations has
adopted more than 20 principal treaties further elaborating human rights. These include
conventions to prevent and prohibit specific abuses like torture and genocide and to protect
especially vulnerable populations, such as refugees (Convention Relating to the Status of

1
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-1/short-history.htm
Refugees, 1951), women (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, 1979), and children (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989).

1.4 The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations

Globally the champions of human rights have most often been citizens, not government officials.
In particular, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have played a cardinal role in focusing the
international community on human rights issues. For example, NGO activities surrounding the
1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, drew
unprecedented attention to serious violations of the human rights of women. NGOs such as
Amnesty International, the Antislavery Society, the International Commission of Jurists, the
International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs, Human Rights Watch, Minnesota
Advocates for Human Rights, and Survivors International monitor the actions of governments
and pressure them to act according to human rights principles.

CHAPTER 2

NATURAL LAW AND DERIVATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS FROM NATURAL LAW

Natural law is the direct opposite of positive law, and is what is defined as god’s law or ideal
law, which has no loop holes as in manmade law. It is law which is based on morality rather than
legality believing that any man made law which is not morally correct is not law at all.
Naturalists argue that positive law is always evolving to attain the threshold of natural law.

Some prominent figures who argued for the supremacy of natural law and morality were St.
Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Hobbes. The foundation of natural law is religious beliefs and
moral rights and wrongs as shown throughout history.

The notion of human rights, I believe, is derived from natural rights, which in turn is derived
from religious and moral beliefs. So the international bill of human rights we see today actually
is a child of natural law itself. John locke, a follower of Thomas Hobbes, and a renowned
philosopher, while writing about natural rights in Two Treatises Of Government, has said that
“men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject
to a monarch. He argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property
that have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society” [3]
This is exactly what is entrenched in the International Bill of Human rights today. So it is
logically arguable, and it is my belief that Human rights is actually natural law/ natural rights
itself, in another form, trying to impose supremacy over positive law just like in the eras passed.
Thus if natural law is not accepted as being a part of positive law, human rights can never be
truly accepted.

CONCLUSION

The description of theories of rights express the fact that rights are originated inherently in
human beings. However, it is helpful to the development of the human beings. Rights are the
properties of human beings. It is necessary and useful for the social development. Human life is
upgraded through these rights. Human rights are not just a product of morality but protect the
basic freedom and well-being necessary for human agency. Human rights represent a social
choice of a particular moral vision of human potentiality, which rests on a particular substantive
account of the minimum requirements of a life of dignity.

The distinctive focus of each theory results in significant variations in their lists of specific
human rights or the kind of activities humans may indulge in. Human rights based on subsistence
would not include the range of democratic rights that most liberals argue that an essential
element of human rights based on dignity.