What are human rights and when were human rights declared?

Answer 1

The United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 after 1400 votes on every word, every concept, every pronouncement. The 58 member countries came from extremely varied religious and political backgrounds making agreement extremely difficult especially concerning women's rights. It contains 30 articles that enumerate its vision of universal human rights. It is the best known and cited document of its kind in the world.

Human rights is an inexact concept usually arrived at through a consensus and there are those who hold different views of the rights we are entitled to by virtue of being human. Some views are more simple and don't include the more exacting details of the UN Declaration. One such scheme written by an individual can be found at the related link for true human rights. Human rights declarations are all products of their author's values and morality and also their religious backgrounds and personal beliefs. In this case, they are the opinion of one person.

Human Rights are a concept that dates back to antiquity - it is far from a modern concept. Human Rights have gone by a wide variety of other names, but the concept is identical: they define the fundamantal state and situation of being a human being in a society. As such, human rights are a philosophical question, which has been debated by great thinkers throughout history.

In the modern era, Human Rights have often gone by the name of Natural Rights, or Inherent Rights, or even, the Fundamental Nature of Man. In all cases, the discussion is about what basic minimum standards of behavior are given by a society to all its members. Often couched in religious or moral terms, Human Rights are actually a social contract - that is, they define certain behaviors that are considered intrinsic to members of that society, and from which no member can be deprived. Thus, a Human Right is a legal entitlement to some action or benefit, which cannot be removed, and is considered to be a part of the foundational philosophy of a society. The specific definition of Human Rights (i.e. which behaviors) varies from society to society.

Today, we have a general global consensus on some fundamental rights (the aforementioned UN Declaration of Human Rights is perhaps the iconic example of a list of such rights), but there is a great deal of contention between various societies as to many other rights - Rights that are considered fundamental in one society are accorded less status in others. The concept of Human Rights on the international level is generally taken to be those collection of behaviors which have achieves a consensus of acceptance (but not necessarily a unanimity of acceptance) - that this, those Rights which a substantial majority of societies accepts as Human Rights.