3.3.8 The Fight for Human Rights
3.3.8 The Fight for Human Rights
Human rights are key to liberalism, yet under classical liberalism, these rights were not fully experienced by all people. What are "human rights"? They are the basic rights to which all people are entitled. What exactly does that mean?
Human rights, or the idea that all people are entitled to justice, is sometimes called "natural law"-the idea that rules set out by nature apply to everyone worldwide. However, are these "laws" really natural? Humans have suffered from injustice throughout their existence, and the human rights of individuals and groups continue to be violated around the world today.
The concept of human rights is not limited to western liberal democracies.
The ancient Greeks believed in human rights. The Enlightenment philosophers discussed the idea of a social contract or unwritten agreement between the rulers and the ruled. Many religions have promoted universal human dignity. The South African concept
of ubuntu is the idea that by being human we are connected automatically to other people, and through this connection, we all recognize that our actions affect each other.
We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa
In this unit, you have looked at equal rights for women and working people. Those rights include the right to vote, the right to equal treatment under the law, the right to work, the right to be safe at work, the right to negotiate for fair wages, etc.
Most liberal democracies identify the rights of their citizens in their national constitutions. In Canada, this is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
International human rights were laid out in detail by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948 and signed by almost every nation in the world. Although the declaration is not a binding agreement, it does record many of the individual rights and freedoms that people aspire to around the world today.
The development of a well-articulated list of rights was an important step on the path to modern liberalism.
The History of Human Rights:
The History and Importance of the Magna Carta: