HUMAN RIGHTS

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                                                            HUMAN RIGHTS


 Meaning of Human Rights;

    Human Rights refer to the "Basic Rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled. Human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and freedom of expression, equality before the law, then social, cultural and economic rights including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, and the right to work, and right to education. In India, the protection of Human Rights act 1993 defines the Human rights of the individual guaranteed by the Indian Constitution as embodied in the Fundamental Rights.

Definition of Human Rights: 

    Various definitions of human rights have been offered by different scholars, they are: "A right is a claim recognized by society and enforced by the state". 

"Any particular right which we have is a capacity of enjoying some particular status or employing some particular power of action, which has been secured and guaranteed to me by law".

                                                                                                               EARNEST BARKER.

Origin of Human Rights in the world:

    The emergence of rights in political thought is generally regarded as relatively recent, though any historical study of rights reveals how indeterminate the philosophical charting of the evolution of rights has been (Renteln, 1988). Human rights are considered the offspring of natural rights, which themselves evolved from the concept of natural law. Natural law, which has played a dominant role in Western political theory for centuries, is that standard of higher-order morality against which all other laws are adjudged. To contest the injustice of human-made law, one was to appeal to the greater authority of God or natural law.

    Eventually, this concept of natural law evolved into natural rights; this change reflected a shift in emphasis from society to the individual. Whereas natural law provided a basis for curbing excessive state power over society, natural rights gave individuals the ability to press claims against the government (Renteln, 1988).1 The modern conception of rights can be traced back to Enlightenment political philosophy and the movement, primarily in England, France, and the United States, to establish limited forms of representative government that would respect the freedom of individual citizens.

    John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Government (1690), described a "state of nature" prior to the creation of a society in which individuals fended for themselves and looked after their own interests. In this state, each person possessed a set of natural rights, including the rights to life, liberty and property. According to Locke, when individuals came together in social groups, the main purpose of their union was to secure these rights more effectively. Consequently, they ceded to the governments they established "only the right to enforce these natural rights and not the rights themselves" ("Human Rights: Historical Development," n.d.).

    Locke's philosophy, known as classical liberalism, helped foster a new way of thinking about individuals, governments, and the rights that link the two. Previously, heads of state claimed to rule by divine right, tracing their authority through genealogy to the ultimate source to some divine being. This was as true for Roman emperors as it was for Chinese and Japanese emperors. The theory of divine right was most forcefully asserted during the Renaissance by monarchs across Europe, most notoriously James Lof England (1566-1625) and Louis XIV of France (1638-1715).

    Locke's principles were adopted by the founding fathers of the United States in the Declaration of Independence (1776), which stated: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.

         The echoes of Locke are unmistakable in the language of the Declaration of Independence. Similarly, the language used both by Locke and by the Founding Fathers clearly foreshadows the creation of a document like the Universal Declaration. These principles were further expounded and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution (1787) and Bill of Rights (1789). (Right to vote for girls – 1948) Natural rights theorists have asserted the existence of specific rights-most notably the right to self-preservation (Hobbes) and the right to property (Locke). Because such theorists take the validity of fundamental rights to be self-evident, there has traditionally been little tolerance for debate. One scholar notes that natural rights seemed peculiarly vulnerable to ethical scepticism" (Waldron 1984: 3). Nevertheless, natural rights were not widely contested as they were asserted in a limited universe of shared Western values (Renteln, 1988)

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