Chapter 3: Basic Documents of Human Rights

Major Human Rights Documents From England: Magna Carta Libertatum (1215), The English Bill of Rights (1689)

During the late 12 ^th and at the beginning of the 13 ^th century, there was no mention of the value of a human being, but there were only two bodies or persons which have value among the residents of the empires: King and the Church. King John (1166-1216) –King of England during that period– had several dissensions with the barons, just because of the protracted wars and high taxation that drive the society into a corner. Besides that, English army under the King John’s rule lost many lands to France. These pressures paved the way to an inner resistance and ended up with an agreement called the Magna Carta in 1215.

The article 39 of the Magna Carta states that ‘No freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his freehold or outlawed or banished or in any way ruined, nor will we take or order action against him, except by the lawful judgment of his equals and according to the law of the land’ and guarantees that the government will not act against its citizens except in accordance with the law. (Sol, 2016, 67). This article demonstrates the end of the unlimited authority of King, which might be called a revolution in the history of rights discourse as well.

As stated above, Magna Carta Libertatum was not a human rights document in the sense of modern human rights documents. But if we take the political conditions of the 13th century into consideration , it can be seen as a milestone in the human rights history.

After the Magna Carta Libertatum , legal and juridical concepts had started to change. St. Thomas Aquinas has been one of the philosophers who contributed to these developments. Aquinas classifies four forms of law as eternal law, natural law, divine law and human law. These are the basic parts of law and related to human beings; namely their doing good and avoiding evil in their actions.

Another legal philosopher who has a lasting influence on the modern human rights documents is Dutch legal philosopher Hugo Grotius. According to Grotius, the main idea of the natural law is the ability to self-preservation possessed equally by every single human being.

English Bill of Rights can be regarded as the first document on the right of individuals about their life and religious thoughts.

The Glorious Revolution, as a consequence of –the English Bill of Rights – concluded with the prevention of possible heir conflict as well as receiving the individual human rights in a legal document. As stated before, all legal human rights documents were a triumphant successor of the previous one, and English Bill of Rights was inheriting from Magna Carta after about 450 years.

Fundamental Human Rights Documents From USA: Virginia Declaration of Human Rights (1776) and United States Declaration of Independence (1776)

Four major revolutionary documents of the eighteenth century, i.e. Virginia Declaration of Human Rights (1776), US Declaration of Independence (1776), the US Bill of Rights (1791), and the French Declaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen (I789) have been addressed generally as milestones in the history of human rights and its cradle of modernity.

Greek legal Philosopher and human rights lecturer Costas Douzinas has pointed out the evolution of the human rights through these documents:

According to Douzinas, these revolutionary documents had drawn reflections of the idea of human rights to the legal articles almost in these two long centuries

While the English Bill of Rights proclaimed the “ancient rights and liberties” as English legal practices; United States Declaration of Independence as well as the Virginia Declaration of Rights , defended and stressed “equality, universality and freedom”. We witness these heirships between the consecutive documents on human rights. As of the Declaration of Independence , individual rights began to take place in the significant legal articles.

But before the United States Declaration of Independence , we should mention the Virginia Declaration of Rights published just a month before it, in the year 1776.

The American Bills of Rights do not attempt merely to set forth certain principles for the state’s organization, but they seek above all to draw the boundary line between state and individual. According to them the individual is not the possessor of rights through the state, but by his own nature he has inalienable and indefeasible rights.

The backyard of the United States Declaration of Independence, Virginia Declaration of Rights was the new liberal thoughts in new lands. This declaration constitutes a second milestone in the history of human rights.

“The historian of the American Revolution says of the Virginia declaration that it protested against all tyranny in the name of the eternal laws of man’s being: ‘‘The English petition of right in 1688 was historic and retrospective; the Virginia declaration came directly out of the heart of nature and announced governing principles for all peoples in all future times” (Jellinek 1901: 46).

After a long period of colonial wars and sufferings, a new state was established on July 1776. Just a month after the Virginia Declaration of Rights , United States gained his independence from England with the Declaration of Independence.

“The American bills of rights do not attempt merely to set forth certain principles for the state’s organization, but they seek above all to draw the boundary line between state and individual. According to them, the individual is not the possessor of rights through the state, but by his own nature he has inalienable and indefeasible rights. The English laws know nothing of this. They do not wish to recognize an eternal, natural right, but one inherited from their fathers, “the old, undoubted rights of the English people” (Jellinek, 1901, 48).

The French Revolution and French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens (1789)

Another momentous document in human rights history is the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens declared on August 26 by the French Constituent Assembly, in 1789. The declaration ‘the rights of man and of citizens” is one of the most significant results of the French Revolution.

The Relation of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens with the Previous Core Human Rights Documents

The relation between the French Declaration and the Declaration of Independence of the thirteen United States of North America has been a contentious subject since the 18 ^th century. The declarations from Magna Carta to the American Declaration of Independence have been enumerated and arranged in regular sequence as various precursors of the French Declaration.

“The social contract has only one stipulation, namely, the complete transference to the community of all the individual’s rights. The individual does not retain one particle of his rights from the moment he enters the state. Everything that he receives of the nature of right he gets from the volenté générale , which is the sole judge of its own limits, and ought not to be, and cannot be, restricted by the law of any power. Even property belongs to the individual only by virtue of state concession” (Jellinek, 1901, 9).

The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens

Another significant issue about this declaration was the developments on its background in France. Before the Revolution and announcement of French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens , people in France was living under oppression and suffering from poverty. In mid-1789, the country faced with the crowded demonstrations almost every corner of the country held by poor people of lower classes called sans-culottes . Versailles Palace conducted the cruel gunshots for suppressing the revolt of sans-culottes . Flourishing insurrection could not be controlled by the ancient regime.

Like the United States Declaration of Independence, French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens also started with the emphasis on the equal rights at birth: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good.” (French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens, 1789) With this article, the declaration stressed distinctness between the rights as a citizen and rights which comes with the birth, as all modern human rights articles.

Universal Declaration Of Human Rights (1948) And Following International Human Rights Documents

As mentioned above, Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been a milestone in the history of human rights law. It has been followed by numerous conventions and declarations which aimed to prevent human rights violations and to secure human rights for every human person all over the world.

Documents on Human Rights of the International Organisations Before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In fact, the path from feudalism to liberal national state required some political movements. The US Declaration of Independence and French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens prepared the way to modern human rights theory, even though they did not directly aim to protect human rights. But they have been the noteworthy steps in the way to the Universal Declaration.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

After the end of World War II, the leaders of the leading countries undertook the large-scaled of endeavours for maintaining the peace and protecting human life and liberty. Charter of the United Nations, drafted in 1941 and signed in 1945, was the pivotal endeavour to reach this goal. Even these efforts actually aimed to protect the life and liberty of people, the new UN has failed to secure all people of the world community.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

(UDHR) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10th December 1948, and this day is declared as Human Rights Day and is celebrated annually across the world on 10 December every year.

Though the general agreement on the UDHR and efforts made by world leaders for human rights have not been successful to secure human rights all over the world. And that led to the UN to draft new declarations and covenants referring to the specific topics and new challenges of human rights. “The writing and subsequent adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was one of the first major achievements of the United Nations, and was seen by many as evidence of the organisation’s commitment ‘to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom’” (O’Byrne, 2003, 85).

Considering the cruelty and destruction during World War II, the international community as well as the leaders were trying to find out a solution against further misery. There were established working groups who were working on writing a protective code. Eleanor Roosevelt –the wife of Franklin Roosevelt– was the delegate of the US to the United Nations General Assembly between 1945 and 1952, and she was a member of these working groups. She has been a pioneer for creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights .

Further Human Rights Documents after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

With the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the world community has reached a new step in the history of humanity, and human rights has become a major indicator of the Zeitgeist . After that with the endeavours of the Council of Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights was declared in 1950 and entered into force in 1953. This convention has been the core protective human rights guide for all signatory member states. While this convention the rights of human beings have stressed, it has also focused on trial mechanism and its violations by states. This need forced European Council to create an international court, European Court of Human Rights, to implement the articles of the Convention and to establish a judicial system according to the Convention.

The UN system includes more than above mentioned conventions related to the protection of human rights. Others are below:

• Convention Related to the Status of Refugees (1951)
• Convention on the Political Rights of Women (1953)
• International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of Crime of Apartheid (1973)
• Declaration on the Protection from Torture (1975)
• Convention Against Torture, and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984)
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
• Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981)
• International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families (1990).