mid-fifth century

Athenian tragedy, a
civil war divided two
brothers, one died
defending Thebes, and
the other, Polyneices,
died attacking it.

401 - 500
5th

1101

John Locke political theory was

used to justify resistance to
Charles II over the right of
succession to the English throne
and the Whig Revolution of
1688-89 by which James II was
dethroned and replaced by
William and Mary under terms
which weakened the power of
the crown and strengthened the
power of the Parliament.

The following century saw

a shift from a natural law
concept that was
revelation-centered to a
concept related to mans
reason and what was
discoverable by it, under
the influence of Aristotles
writings which were

12 th

1200

1201

1300
13 th

Lockes modern natural law and rights theory

was influential to those who framed and
ratified the United States constitution and
served as its theoretical foundation is
undeniable. In September 1787, In a letter in
which George Washington formally submitted
the Constitution to Congress, he spoke of the
difficulties of drafting the document in words
borrowed from the standard eighteenthcentury natural rights analysis: Individuals
entering into society, must give up a

1601

1700
17 th

The 1780s and early 1790s, American natural law scholars

occasionally specified which rights were natural and which were
not. On the Lockean assumption that the state of nature was a
condition in which all humans were equally free from
subjugation to one another and had no common superior,
Locke explained
In the medieval times,
By the thirteenth
American scholars tended to agree that natural liberty was the
his political
shortly after 1139, Gratian
century, natural law
freedom of individuals in the state of nature.
theory in his
published the Decretum, a
was understood as the
Lockes natural law and rights theory was restated by the
major
collection and reconciliation
law of right reason,
eighteenth-century political thinker and activist, Thomas Paine.
work, Second
of the canon laws in force,
coinciding with the
Citing the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
Treatise of
In
1942,
The
British
leader
Citizens, Paine identified these rights as the right to liberty,
which distinguished between
biblical law but not
Government, ori
Winston
Churchill
and
the
property, security and resistance of oppression. All other civil
divine or natural law and
ginally
published 16, 1966, the United Nations
American
leader
Franklin
On
December
and political rights - such as to limits on government, to
human law.
in 1690, where
Roosevelt stated in the
freedom the
to choose
a government, to freedom of speech, and to
adopted
International
heGeneral
adopted
the
In 1948, the United
NationsAssembly
Organization
fair published
taxation - were derived from those fundamental natural
preface of their Atlantic
Covenant
on Economic,
Social and
modern
view
its Universal Declaration
of Human
Rights
(UDHR)
as Cultural
rights.
In the 1940s,
thethat
concept
of
Charter
complete
that
human
Rights
(ICESCR)
andHis
the
International
a systematic attempt
to secure
universal
recognition
phrase
rights of man was used in the 1789 French
victory
their
natural rights
orover
rights
of enemies
beings
enjoyed
Onand
March
23, 1976,
These by
of a whole gamut
of
human
rights.
The
Declaration
Declaration
of
the Rights of Man
of Citizens,
proclaimed
Covenant
on
Civil
and
Political
Rights
is essential
to decent life,
natural
rights
in
man regained
force and
affirmed the importance
of civil and political
rights
the French
Constituent Assembly
in August
1789.into
Thereafter,
treaties
entered
force
liberty, independence and
the(ICCPR)
state ofand the Optional Protocol to the
influence because of the
the phrase
rights of man gradually
replaced
natural
rights
such as the rights to life, liberty, property;
equality
and are binding as

religious freedom, and to

growing preserve
awareness
of the
human
wide scale
violation
of such in their
rights
and justice,
rights perpetrated
bywell
the as in 1901
own land as

Civil and Political Rights providing for the

before the law; privacy; a fair trial; freedom of speech
international law upon
mechanismof
ofreligion,
checking
and assembly, of movement,
ofstate compliance to MOLATO, CHRISTOPHER
governments subscribing to
the international
rightsth instruments
participation in government
directlyhuman
or indirectly;
the
JOSELLE
20
them. C.