Human Rights 5

Human rights are "basic rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to regardless of nationality, sex, age, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, language, or other status."[1] Human rights are conceived as universal and egalitarian, with all people having equal rights by virtue of being human.[1][2] These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national and international law.[3] The doctrine of human rights in international practice, within international law, global and regional institutions, in the policies of states and the activities of non-governmental organisations has been a cornerstone of public policy around the world. It has been said that: "if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights."[4] Despite this, the strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism, debates about the content, nature and justifications of human rights continue to this day.

Many of the basic ideas that animated the movement developed in the aftermath of the Second World War and the atrocities of the Holocaust, culminating in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The ancient world did not possess the concept of universal human rights.[5] Ancient societies had "elaborate systems of duties... conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights".[6] The modern concept of human rights developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics.[7] The true forerunner of human rights discourse was the concept of natural rights which appeared as part of the medieval Natural law tradition, became prominent during the Enlightenment with such philosophers as John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, and...