Human Rights Essay: Historical Development and Global Order

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the historical development of human rights, beginning with the philosophical contributions of the Stoics and Sophists in ancient Europe and tracing their evolution through the adoption of key international human rights documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants of 1966. The essay examines the concept of ethical universalism, highlighting the distinction between natural and legal justice, and analyzes the impact of societal changes, such as the rise of feudalism and capitalism, on human rights. It explores the role of the United Nations in promoting and protecting human rights, as well as the resistance faced by the human rights movement, particularly in regions with differing cultural and religious perspectives. The essay concludes by emphasizing the significance of these legal doctrines in the contemporary world order, drawing comparisons between legal statutes and cases from Zambia and the United Kingdom, and underscoring the importance of upholding universal human rights.

Running head: HUMAN RIGHTS
Human Rights
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The term ‘rights’ holds so much of power and authority that it has the power to challenge
the legitimacy of a nation state. The concept of rights did not exist as such during the initial years
of the evolution of human kind. People lived in the state of nature where they under took the
basic activities which were needed for survival. Their only want was the basic means of
subsistence which was vital for survival. As a result, they only did what they were required to do
in order to survive. Not much importance was placed on ‘rights’ and ‘freedom’. Slowly, with the
evolution of the human race, people came to understand the importance of certain laws of nature
such as the right to survive, right to freedom among others1. These were so basic rights that
people did not consider it necessary for the establishment of a formal organization which will
help them to protect and guarantee the perpetuation of such rights. Such rights were termed as
basic ‘universal’ rights as they were granted to everyone without any discrimination. With the
further developments in the human civilization, the issue of rights started to gain significance.
This is because of the fact that the people in the society slowly started to separate from each
other based on their financial value. The human society was divided on the lines of the rulers and
the ruled and the class of rulers were extremely dominating on the majority of the ruled. They
were of the idea that since the majority of the people were no longer able to afford their basic
means of survival and needed money in order to sustain themselves and since this means was
available with the minority ruling class, the ruling class therefore had the power over the ruled
class to subordinate them2. This essay seeks to discuss the importance of human rights in the
context of the global world order. For this purpose, the essay looks in to the development of the
concept of rights over the time periods of the Sophists and the Stoics till the development of the
three documents of human rights in the year 1966. The essay also looks in to the legal statutes
1 Donnelly, Jack, and Daniel J. Whelan. International human rights. Hachette UK, 2017.
2 Freeman, Michael. Human rights. John Wiley & Sons, 2017

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and cases belonging to the region of Zambia and the United Kingdom, drawing a comparison
over them. The essay concludes with the significance of such legal doctrines and their
implications for the modern contemporary world order.
Human rights believe in the idea of ethical universalism which means that all the rights
granted to the people should be ethically and morally right and that they should be guaranteed to
all individuals without any discrimination. The idea of moral universalism first appeared in the
context of the region of Europe during the time of the Stoics and Aristotle. Aristotle drew a
distinction between the natural justice and the legal justice in his book the “Nicomachean
Ethics”3. According to Aristotle, natural justice is something which is granted to the people in a
universal manner and it does not depend upon the acceptance of the other people in the society.
On the other hand, legal justice is something that needs to be granted by someone in authority to
the people who stay under such authority4. The Stoics had this similar perception about such
nature of rights and freedom. They were of the opinion that it was the natural moral law that was
granted by the existence of God. As a result, it was the duty and the obligation of the people to
follow and adhere to such laws and rights which took a higher precedence over the other legal
laws and justice. Such natural laws were granted to the people merely on the basis of their
existence and hence, they could not be abridged by anyone, no matter the extent of their power
and authority5. This idea of the Stoics were shared by the Christians living within Europe. They
believed in the idea of a common community which shared such moral and ethical laws and
3 Forsythe, David P. Human rights in international relations. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
4 Cohen, Joshua. "Minimalism about human rights: The most we can hope for?." In Theories of Rights, pp. 419-442.
Routledge, 2017.
5 Mayer, Ann Elizabeth. Islam and human rights: Tradition and politics. Routledge, 2018.

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rights based on the will of God. Such believe gave rise to the doctrine of natural law in the
sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe.
With the evolution of human civilization, the nature of human rights also began to
change. The natural rights which were granted to the people stated to come under severe threat
with the rise of feudalism and capitalist society6. The issue of money began to separate the
people in to different strata of the society and they longer had the freedom to live as they did in
the natural order of the state. In other words, the people now had to adhere to the social customs
and traditions which were formalized in to laws and policies. The system of capitalism led to the
outbreak of many conflicts and wars which further led to the gross violation of the human rights.
It was mainly the majority of the common people who suffered this loss and suffering7. The
outbreak of the First World War in the starting of the twentieth century and the Second World
War in the middle of the twentieth century, led to the further violations of the human rights.
Many people were killed, many were left injured and millions of dollars’ worth of property were
destroyed. The activities carried out by Adolf Hitler in the concentration camps against the Jews
showed to the world the need for a formal institution which would allow people to live with
dignity.
It was in this context that the United Nations Organization came to the forefront8. The
state leaders of the world came together and formed the United Nations which is an inter-
governmental organization. The main objective of the United Nations is to ensure the
6 Kempadoo, Kamala, Jyoti Sanghera, and Bandana Pattanaik. Trafficking and prostitution reconsidered: New
perspectives on migration, sex work, and human rights. Routledge, 2015.
7 Smith, Rhona KM. Textbook on international human rights. Oxford University Press, 2016.
8 Heifer, Laurence R. "Overlegalizing human rights: International relations theory and the Commonwealth
Caribbean backlash against human rights regimes." In International Law and Society, pp. 125-204. Routledge, 2017.

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establishment of peace and harmony in the world and to guarantee to everyone their basic
universal rights. It is in this regard that the Universal Declaration to Human Rights came in to
force in the year 1948 which was spearheaded by Eleanor Roosevelt. The Universal Declaration
to Human Rights is an official document which grants to people several important rights such as
the right to equality and the right to freedom without any discrimination. All these rights sought
to provide a quality standard of living to the people.
However, the rights granted under the Universal Declaration to human Rights were not
comprehensive in nature9. The violation of the human rights continued and it was not until the
year 1966 that the state leaders realized the importance of formalizing two additional documents
to provide rights to the people. In this context, the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights came in to being. This document seeks to provide certain political and civil rights to the
people with the objective of making them active participants in the functioning of the state. The
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was passed by the General Assembly of the
United Nations by the 2200A Resolution10. It is multilateral in nature which means that it is
granted to all the people living in all the parts of the world. By 2017, more than one hundred and
seventy two countries have signed the document International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights without providing any ratification. This provides the right to freedom of religion that is,
people have the freedom to profess and follow any religion of their choice. Moreover, they have
the right to life that is no one can be killed without facing any punishment and repercussions11.
The freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly has also been provided by this document.
9 Shelton, Dinah. Remedies in international human rights law. Oxford University Press, USA, 2015.
10 Stein, Michael Ashley. "Disability human rights." In Nussbaum and Law, pp. 3-49. Routledge, 2017.
11 Habermas, Jürgen. "The concept of human dignity and the realistic utopia of human rights." In Human Dignity,
pp. 52-70. Routledge, 2018.

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The actions of the various countries on the basis of this document are analyzed by the Human
Rights Council. The report provided by the Council is analyzed by the General Assembly of the
United Nations and their recommendations are provided by the Assembly which have to be
followed by the various nation states.
Another document which was introduced in the year 1966 was that of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights12. This document provides for the promotion
of the cultural rights of the people and their economic well-being. This article is deemed to be
essential because many nation states do not promote the living standard of their citizen. They are
only concerned with the promotion of the national interest of the country during which the
requirements of the people often get ignored and sidelined.
Many countries of the world are not willing to instill this document of human rights13.
This is because they are of the opinion that the Western ideals of the western world will be
imposed on their customs and traditions and these will further lead to the degeneration of their
own cultural significance. Most of the resistance is faced by the countries in the Middle East
region of the world where the countries ascribe to the Islamic doctrine of religious thought14.
These countries are Islamic in their orientation and they believe that the dictates of their prophet
Mohammed are the ones which should be followed with absolute obedience. The countries of
such origin follow their Holy book that is the Book of Quran and according to its dictates, it
gives the requisite freedom and rights to the people. As a result of this, the women population of
such countries are not given much of their freedom and they do not have access even to the basic
12 Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda E. Human rights and the search for community. Routledge, 2018.
13 Symonides, Janusz. Human rights: Concept and standards. Routledge, 2017.
14 Clapham, Andrew. Human rights: a very short introduction. OUP Oxford, 2015.

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human rights. For instance, the right to equality is often restricted to the female gender. They are
subordinated by the male gender simply on the basis that it is allowed by their religious
doctrines. Such a feature is severely undermined by the rights granted by the United Nations as
the United Nations tries to uphold the dignified living of all the people of the world, irrespective
of any differences, even that of gender discrimination or racial biases15. The United Nations is
the repository of all the legal and ethical rights and laws for the establishment of peace and
harmony in the world. It tries to ensure that all the countries of the world should have the
freedom of territorial integrity. In other words, the countries are guaranteed their internal
sovereignty and external sovereignty. The word ‘sovereignty’ means that the nation states of the
world have the right to take their own course of action without the interference of the other states
of the world. This unique right has been written in the Charter of the United Nations in the
Chapter VI and Chapter VII16. However, Chapter VII of the Atlantic Charter of the United
Nations consist an important exception to the idea of internal sovereignty by the Article 40 that
states that the Security Council of the United Nations have the right to determine the nature of
any threat to the idea of peace and harmony17. If it believes that a threat of severe nature exist,
then it will have the right and the power to stop or prevent the execution of such threat so that
international peace and security is maintained. This clause provides the freedom to the member
countries of the United Nations to undertake any military operation in the territory of the state
where such threats to peace and harmony exist. For instance, many military operations have been
carried out by the United Nations in the context of Hungary. This instance provides a traumatic
15 Lavenex, Sandra. Revival: The Europeanisation of Refugee Policies (2001): Between Human Rights and Internal
Security. Routledge, 2017.
16 Dwyer, K. (2016). Arab Voices: the human rights debate in the Middle East. Routledge.
17 Baehr, Peter. Human rights: Universality in practice. Springer, 2016.

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reality of the clause being misused by the nation states that are more powerful in the world. They
have both the military capability and the financial resources to interfere with the sovereignty of
the other weaker countries of the world18.
In conclusion it is observed that human rights believe in the idea of ethical universalism
which means that all the rights granted to the people should be ethically and morally right and
that they should be guaranteed to all individuals without any discrimination. With the evolution
of human civilization, the nature of human rights also began to change. The natural rights which
were granted to the people stated to come under severe threat with the rise of feudalism and
capitalist society. The issue of money began to separate the people in to different strata of the
society and they longer had the freedom to live as they did in the natural order of the state. In
other words, the people now had to adhere to the social customs and traditions which were
formalized in to laws and policies. It was in this context that the United Nations Organization
came to the forefront. The state leaders of the world came together and formed the United
Nations which is an inter-governmental organization. It has the main objective of guaranteeing
the preponderance of the human rights to all the people of the world.
By the passing of the Gender Equity and Equality Act of 2015, the Zambian Government
has actually outlawed all form of discrimination against the women in the country. In the part
five of the Act, the elimination of the discrimination against women in the field of employment
has been enshrined. Despite that the women from legal profession and also from the profession
of media houses have reportedly been facing quite a lot of discrimination. The main problem is
that hardly any case is registered and even in a woman complains her concerns are not taken
18 McDougal, Myres S., Harold D. Lasswell, and Lung-chu Chen. Human rights and world public order: the basic
policies of an international law of human dignity. Oxford University Press, 2018.

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seriously at all which is why the cases of violation of the law in the sphere of employment hardly
reaches the courts of law. This has been reported as per the findings of the researchers. Another
form of violation of human rights that happen in Zambia is the violation of the Anti Gender
Based Violence Act of 2011. The law seeks to protect women who face domestic violence or any
other form of violence at the hands of men whether in the public realm or in private. Reportedly,
despite the passage of five years from the date of the legislation, in the year 2016, 13092 cases of
violence against women have been registered. On calculation on average in the year 2016, 48
cases of violence of women were reported on a daily basis given the statistical data provided by
then Information and Broadcasting Minister Kampamba Mulenga. These cases hint at the sorry
state of human rights in the country despite the presence of laws safeguarding the interests of the
victims and the most unfortunate part of it is that it happens rampantly and the legal system of
the country turns a blind eye to the cases that get reported. On top of that there are several cases
which do not get reported at all19.
In the UK too there are cases of violation of human rights. The Race Regulations Act of
1965 was passed in the UK as a legal measure to curb the instances of racial discrimination in the
country. However, with the hijab issue all over Europe, UK too had committed had committed
grave violation of human rights. In the the conjoined cases of Bougnaoui v Micropole Univers
and Achbita and others v G4S Security Systems two muslim women were forced to remove hijab
or the Islamic headscarf at their workplaces soon after the European Court ruled that religious
symbols in workplaces were illegal. Another form of violation of human rights that take place in
UK is the rising instances of honour killing in UK especially in the Pakistani Community. One of
the most important case is that of Banaz who was murdered by her parents to save the honour of
19 Hernandez, Victoria. "A Qualitative Case Study on the Domestic Violence Act, 2007 (732) and The Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women." (2018).

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the family and that is a violence of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 (c 28)
of the UK Parliament which seeks to criminalize all forms of violence against women in the
country. The issue of honour killings of women is rampant in the country20.
Summary of the Essay
1. The concept of rights did not exist as such during the initial years of the evolution of human
kind.
2. Slowly, with the evolution of the human race, people came to understand the importance of
certain laws of nature such as the right to survive, right to freedom among others.
3. Human rights believe in the idea of ethical universalism which means that all the rights
granted to the people should be ethically and morally right and that they should be guaranteed to
all individuals without any discrimination.
4. The idea of moral universalism first appeared in the context of the region of Europe during the
time of the Stoics and Aristotle. Aristotle drew a distinction between the natural justice and the
legal justice in his book the “Nicomachean Ethics”.
5. The Stoics had this similar perception about such nature of rights and freedom. They were of
the opinion that it was the natural moral law that was granted by the existence of God.
6. The natural rights which were granted to the people stated to come under severe threat with
the rise of feudalism and capitalist society. The issue of money began to separate the people in to
different strata of the society and they longer had the freedom to live as they did in the natural
order of the state.
20 García-Moreno, Claudia, Cathy Zimmerman, Alison Morris-Gehring, Lori Heise, Avni Amin, Naeemah
Abrahams, Oswaldo Montoya, Padma Bhate-Deosthali, Nduku Kilonzo, and Charlotte Watts. "Addressing violence
against women: a call to action." The Lancet 385, no. 9978 (2015): 1685-1695.

10HUMAN RIGHTS
7. It was in this context that the United Nations Organization came to the forefront. The state
leaders of the world came together and formed the United Nations which is an inter-
governmental organization.
8. It is in this regard that the Universal Declaration to Human Rights came in to force in the year
1948 which was spearheaded by Eleanor Roosevelt.
9. The violation of the human rights continued and it was not until the year 1966 that the state
leaders realized the importance of formalizing two additional documents to provide rights to the
people. In this context, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and
the document International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came in to being.
10. Many countries of the world are not willing to instill this document of human rights.

11HUMAN RIGHTS
References:
Baehr, Peter. Human rights: Universality in practice. Springer, 2016.
Clapham, Andrew. Human rights: a very short introduction. OUP Oxford, 2015.
Cohen, Joshua. "Minimalism about human rights: The most we can hope for?." In Theories of
Rights, pp. 419-442. Routledge, 2017.
Donnelly, Jack, and Daniel J. Whelan. International human rights. Hachette UK, 2017.
Dwyer, K. (2016). Arab Voices: the human rights debate in the Middle East. Routledge.
Forsythe, David P. Human rights in international relations. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Freeman, Michael. Human rights. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
García-Moreno, Claudia, Cathy Zimmerman, Alison Morris-Gehring, Lori Heise, Avni Amin,
Naeemah Abrahams, Oswaldo Montoya, Padma Bhate-Deosthali, Nduku Kilonzo, and Charlotte
Watts. "Addressing violence against women: a call to action." The Lancet 385, no. 9978 (2015):
1685-1695.
Habermas, Jürgen. "The concept of human dignity and the realistic utopia of human rights."
In Human Dignity, pp. 52-70. Routledge, 2018.
Heifer, Laurence R. "Overlegalizing human rights: International relations theory and the
Commonwealth Caribbean backlash against human rights regimes." In International Law and
Society, pp. 125-204. Routledge, 2017.
Hernandez, Victoria. "A Qualitative Case Study on the Domestic Violence Act, 2007 (732) and
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women." (2018).