History of human rights

Rights
Theoretical distinctions
Claim rights and liberty rights Individual and group rights Natural rights and legal rights Negative and positive rights
Human rights
Civil and political Economic, social and cultural Three generations
Rights by beneficiary
Accused Animals Autistic Children Consumers Creditors Deaf Disabled Elders Family Farmers Fetuses Humans Indigenous Intersex Kings LGBT Transgender Men Minorities Parents Fathers Mothers Patients Peasants Plants Prisoners Robots States Students Victims Women Workers Youth
Other groups of rights
Assembly Association Asylum Civil liberties Clothing Development Digital Education Fair trial Food Free migration Health Healthy environment Housing Linguistic Movement Property Repair Reproductive Rest and leisure Security Self defense Self-determination of people Sexuality Speech Water and sanitation
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While belief in the sanctity of human life has ancient precedents in many religions of the world, the foundations of modern human rights began during the era of renaissance humanism in the early modern period. The European wars of religion and the civil wars of seventeenth-century Kingdom of England gave rise to the philosophy of liberalism and belief in natural rights became a central concern of European intellectual culture during the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. Ideas of natural rights, which had a basis in natural law, lay at the core of the American and French Revolutions which occurred toward the end of that century, but the idea of human rights came about later. Democratic evolution through the nineteenth century paved the way for the advent of universal suffrage in the twentieth century. Two world wars led to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The post-war era saw movements arising from specific groups experiencing a shortfall in their rights, such as feminism and the civil rights of African Americans. The human rights movements of members of the Soviet bloc emerged in the 1970s along with workers' rights movements in the West. The movements quickly jelled as social activism and political rhetoric in many nations put human rights high on the world agenda.^[1] By the 21st century, historian Samuel Moyn has argued, the human rights movement expanded beyond its original anti-totalitarianism to include numerous causes involving humanitarianism and social and economic development in the Developing World.^[2]

The history of human rights has been complex. Many established rights for instance would be replaced by other systems which deviate from their original western design. Stable institutions may be uprooted such as in cases of conflict such as war and terrorism or a change in culture.^[3]