Brief History of Human Rights
Uploaded by
ScribdTranslationsBrief History of Human Rights
Uploaded by
ScribdTranslationsBrief history of Human Rights
In the year 539 B.C., the armies of Cyrus the Great, the first king of ancient Persia,
they conquered the city of Babylon was the one who freed the slaves and declared that all the
people had the right to choose their own religion and established racial equality.
Known today as the Cyrus Cylinder, this ancient document has been recognized in the
current events as the first document of human rights in the world. It is
translated into the six official languages of the United Nations and its provisions are
analogous to the first four articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
From Babylon, the idea of human rights spread rapidly to India,
Greece and finally to Rome. There, the concept of 'natural law' was born, in the observation of
the fact that people tended to follow, throughout life, certain laws that did not
they were written, and Roman law was based on rational ideas derived from nature of
the things.
The documents that affirm individual rights, such as the Magna Carta (1215), the
Petition of Right (1628), the Constitution of the United States (1787), the Declaration
French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), and the Bill of Rights
from the United States (1791) are the written precursors of many of the documents of the
current human rights.
But the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the cornerstone in the
history of human rights. Drafted by representatives of legal backgrounds and
cultural aspects from all regions of the world, this Declaration was proclaimed by the
United Nations General Assembly, on December 10, 1948 in Paris, as
common ideal that all peoples and nations must strive for Establishes, by
first time, some fundamental human rights that must be protected. Since their
adoption in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been translated into
more than 360 languages and has been a source of inspiration for the constitutions of many
States that have recently gained independence and for many new democracies.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, along with the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols (on the procedures of
individual complaints and the death penalty) and the International Covenant on Economic Rights
Social and Cultural Rights and Optional Protocol constitute the International Charter of
Human rights.
A series of international treaties on human rights and other instruments that are
they have adopted since 1945 have expanded the scope of human rights laws
international. Among them is the convention for the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide (1948), the International Convention on the Elimination of all
the Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), the Convention on the Elimination of
all forms of discrimination against women (1979), the Convention on the
Children's Rights (1989) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
disability (2006) among others. (2)
What are human rights?
According to the IIDH Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (1997) They are conditions
that every person has, regardless of age, sex, race, nationality, social class, or form
to think. These conditions are necessary for the person to fully develop.
in all areas of your life, without interference from government authorities, nor from
other citizens, and allow us to live in equality, freedom, and dignity with other people.
Therefore, these are personal conditions that can be demanded by everyone.
they acquire from the very moment of birth.
According to IIDH (1997), there are several criteria for classifying human rights.
These criteria serve to understand different aspects of these rights, but they do not mean
that some rights are more important than others; all human rights have the
same importance. The first criterion we can use is the one called 'in reason of
"subject." That is, taking into account who exercises or demands compliance with certain
rights. According to this, human rights can be classified as individual rights
and social rights.
Given their nature, human rights are also divided into civil rights and
politicians, economic, social and cultural rights and the rights of peoples or of the
solidarity.
Although they can be classified in various ways, all human rights are equal.
importance and belong equally to all people. That's why it is said that they form a
unique, integral and indivisible body.
Bibliography:
IIDH Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (1997). San José, Costa Rica: First
edition with the support of the Government of Denmark/ PRODECA and the Government of
Sweden/ ASDI. (Series: Educational Modules, Module 1).
(1) Manual on Human Rights Available at:
The provided text is a URL and does not contain any translatable content.
Available inhttp://www.un.org/en/globalissues/humanrights/
