While belief in the sanctity of human life has ancient precedents in many religions of the world, the foundations of modern human rights began during the era of renaissance humanism in the early modern period. The European wars of religion and the civil wars of seventeenth-century Kingdom of England gave rise to the philosophy of liberalism and belief in natural rights became a central concern of European intellectual culture during the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. Ideas of natural rights, which had a basis in natural law, lay at the core of the American and French Revolutions which occurred toward the end of that century, but the idea of human rights came about later. Democratic evolution through the nineteenth century paved the way for the advent of universal suffrage in the twentieth century. Two world wars led to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The post-war era saw movements arising from specific groups experiencing a shortfall in their rights, such as feminism and the civil rights of African Americans. The human rights movements of members of the Soviet bloc emerged in the 1970s along with workers' rights movements in the West. The movements quickly jelled as social activism and political rhetoric in many nations put human rights high on the world agenda.Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard University Press, 2010) By the 21st century, historian Samuel 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.Scott McLemee, "The Last Utopia" Inside Higher Education Dec. 8, 2010 online
The history of human rights has been complex. Many established rights for instance would be replaced by other systems which deviate from their original western design. Stable institutions may be uprooted such as in cases of conflict such as war and terrorism or a change in culture.Human Rights: Commitment and Betrayal, M.G. Chitkara. Publisher, APH Publishing, 1998 .
Ancient and pre-modern eras Some notions of righteousness present in ancient law and religion are 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. Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of human rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship, which did not emerge until the past few hundred years.Samuel Moyn, August 30-edition of September 6, 2010, The Nation, Human Rights in History: Human rights emerged not in the 1940s but the 1970s, and on the ruins of prior dreams , Retrieved August 14, 2014 Nonetheless, relevant examples exist in the Ancient and pre-modern eras, although Ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights.
Ancient West Asia
The reforms of Urukagina of Lagash, the earliest known legal code (), is often thought to be an early example of reform. Professor Norman Yoffee wrote that after Igor M. Diakonoff "most interpreters consider that Urukagina, himself not of the ruling dynasty at Lagash, was no reformer at all. Indeed, by attempting to curb the encroachment of a secular authority at the expense of temple prerogatives, he was, if a modern term must be applied, a reactionary." Author Marilyn French wrote that the discovery of penalties for adultery for women but not for men represents "the first written evidence of the degradation of women". The oldest legal code extant today is the Neo-Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu (). Several other sets of laws were also issued in Mesopotamia, including the Code of Hammurabi (), one of the most famous examples of this type of document. It shows rules, and punishments if those rules are broken, on a variety of matters, including women's rights, men's rights, children's rights and slave rights.
Africa
The Northeast African civilization of Ancient Egypt supported basic human rights. For example, Pharaoh Bocchoris (725–720 BC) promoted individual rights, suppressed imprisonment for debt, and reformed laws relating to the transferral of property.
Antiquity
Many historians suggest that the Achaemenid Persian Empire of ancient Iran established unprecedented principles of human rights in the 6th century BC under Cyrus the Great. After his conquest of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, the king issued the Cyrus cylinder, discovered in 1879 and seen by some today as the first human rights document. The cylinder has been linked by some commentators to the decrees of Cyrus recorded in the Books of Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Ezra, which state that Cyrus allowed (at least some of) the Jews to return to their homeland from their Babylonian Captivity. Additionally it stated the freedom to practice one's faith without persecution and forced conversions. According to art historian Neil MacGregor, the proclamation of full religious freedoms in Babylon and elsewhere in the Persian empire was an important inspiration for human rights by prominent thinkers millennia later, especially in the United States.
In opposition to the above viewpoint, the interpretation of the Cylinder as a "charter of human rights" has been dismissed by other historians and characterized by some others as political propaganda devised by the Pahlavi regime.Kuhrt (1983), pp. 83–97 The German historian Josef Wiesehöfer argues that the image of "Cyrus as a champion of the UN human rights policy ... is just as much a phantom as the humane and enlightened Shah of Persia",Wiesehöfer (1999), pp. 55–68 while historian Elton L. Daniel has described such an interpretation as "rather anachronistic" and tendentious.Daniel, p. 39 The cylinder now lies in the British Museum, and a replica is kept at the United Nations Headquarters.
Many thinkers point to the concept of citizenship beginning in the early poleis of ancient Greece, where all free citizens had the right to speak and vote in the political assembly. Aristotle discusses political rights in books 3 and 6 of his Politics.
The Twelve Tables Law established the principle "Privilegia ne irroganto", which literally means "privileges shall not be imposed".
The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, who ruled from 268 to 232 BCE, established the largest empire in South Asia. Following the reportedly destructive Kalinga War, Ashoka adopted Buddhism and abandoned an expansionist policy in favor of humanitarian reforms. The Edicts of Ashoka were erected throughout his empire, containing the 'Law of Piety'. These laws prohibited religious discrimination, and cruelty against both humans and animals. The Edicts emphasize the importance of tolerance in public policy by the government. The slaughter or capture of prisoners of war was also condemned by Ashoka.Amartya Sen (1997) Some sources claim that slavery was also non-existent in ancient India.Arrian, Indica, "This also is remarkable in India, that all Indians are free, and no Indian at all is a slave. In this the Indians agree with the Lacedaemonians. Yet the Lacedaemonians have Helots for slaves, who perform the duties of slaves; but the Indians have no slaves at all, much less is any Indian a whore." The Greek records say there is absence of slavery during the rule of Sandrocottus.Slave-owning societies , Encyclopædia Britannica
In ancient Rome an ius gentium or jus gentium was a right which a citizen was due simply by dint of his citizenship. The concept of a Roman ius is a precursor to a right as conceived in the Western European tradition. The word "justice" is derived from ius. Human rights legislation in the Roman Empire included the introduction of the presumption of innocence by Emperor Antoninus Pius and the Edict of Milan by Emperor Constantine the Great establishing complete freedom of religion.
The coining of the phrase 'Human rights' can be attributed to Tertullian in his letter To Scapula wherein he wrote about the religious freedom in Roman Empire.To Scapula, Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry He equated "fundamental human rights" as a "privilege of nature" in this letter.
Early Islamic caliphate
Historians generally agree that Muhammad preached against what he saw as the social evils of his day,Alexander (1998), p. 452 and that Islamic social reforms in areas such as social security, family structure, slavery, and the rights of women and ethnic minorities were intended to improve on what was present in existing Arab society at the time.Watt (1974), p. 234Robinson (2004) p. 21Haddad, Esposito (1998), p. 98"Ak̲h̲lāḳ", Encyclopaedia of Islam OnlineJoseph, Najmabadi (2007). Chapter: p. 293. Gallagher, Nancy. Infanticide and Abandonment of Female Children For example, according to Bernard Lewis, Islam "from the first denounced aristocratic privilege, rejected hierarchy, and adopted a formula of the career open to the talents." John Esposito sees Muhammad as a reformer who condemned practices of the pagan Arabs such as female infanticide, exploitation of the poor, usury, murder, false contracts, and theft.Esposito (2005) p. 79 Bernard Lewis believes that the egalitarian nature of Islam "represented a very considerable advance on the practice of both the Greco-Roman and the ancient Persian world." Muhammed also incorporated Arabic and Mosaic laws and customs of the time into his divine revelations.Ahmed I. (1996). Western and Muslim Perceptions of Universal Human Rights . Afrika Focus.
The Constitution of Medina, also known as the Charter of Medina, was drafted by Muhammad in 622. It constituted a formal agreement between Muhammad and all of the significant tribes and families of Yathrib (later known as Medina), including Muslims, Jews, and pagans.See: Firestone (1999) p. 118; "Muhammad", Encyclopedia of Islam OnlineWatt. Muhammad at Medina and R. B. Serjeant "The Constitution of Medina." Islamic Quarterly 8 (1964) p. 4. The document was drawn up with the explicit concern of bringing to an end the bitter intertribal fighting between the clans of the Aws (Aus) and Khazraj within Medina. To this effect it instituted a number of rights and responsibilities for the Muslim, Jewish and pagan communities of Medina bringing them within the fold of one community-the Ummah.R. B. Serjeant, The Sunnah Jami'ah, pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrim of Yathrib: Analysis and translation of the documents comprised in the so-called "Constitution of Medina". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 41, No. 1. 1978), p. 4.
If the prisoners were in the custody of a person, then the responsibility was on the individual.Maududi (1967), Introduction of Ad-Dahr, "Period of revelation", p. 159 Lewis states that Islam brought two major changes to ancient slavery which were to have far-reaching consequences. "One of these was the presumption of freedom; the other, the ban on the enslavement of free persons except in strictly defined circumstances," Lewis continues. The position of the Arabian slave was "enormously improved": the Arabian slave "was now no longer merely a chattel but was also a human being with a certain religious and hence a social status and with certain quasi-legal rights."Lewis (1994) chapter 1