History of Human Rights

Although belief in the sanctity of human life has ancient precedents in many religions of the world the idea of human rights, that is the notion that a human being has a set of inviolable rights simply on grounds of being human began during the era of renaissance humanism in the Early Modern period. Prior to this habeas corpus had been enshrined in the Magna Carta of 1215 AD. The European wars of religion and the civil wars of seventeenth century England gave rise to the philosophy of liberalism and belief in human rights became a central concern of European intellectual culture during the 18th century Age of Enlightenment. The idea of human rights lay at the core of the American and French revolutions which inaugurated an era of democratic revolution throughout the nineteenth century paving the way for the advent of universal suffrage. The world wars of the twentieth century led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The post-war era saw human rights movements for special interest groups such as feminism and the civil rights of African-Americans. The human rights of members of the Soviet bloc emerged in the 1970s along with workers' rights in the West. The movement quickly jelled as social activism and political rhetoric in many nations put it high on the world agenda. By the 21st century, Moyn has argued, the human rights movement expanded beyond its original anti-totalitarianism to include numerous causes involving humanitarianism and social and economic development in the Developing World.

Some notions of righteousness present in ancient law and religion is sometimes retrospectively included under the term "human rights". While Enlightenment philosophers suggest a secular social contract between the rulers and the ruled, ancient traditions derived similar conclusions from notions of divine law, and, in Hellenistic philosophy, natural law.