Cyrus Cylinder (539 B.C.)

The edicts of human rights issued by Cyrus were inscribed in the Akkadian language on a cylinder of fired clay.
In 539 B.C. the army of Cyrus the Great, the first king of ancient Persia, conquered the city of Babylon.

But a tremendous achievement for mankind was his next action. He freed the slaves, declared that all men had the right to choose their own religion, and proclaimed racial equality.
These and his other decrees were written in cuneiform on a cylinder of fired clay.

Known today as the Cyrus cylinder, this ancient document is considered the world’s first charter of human rights. It has been translated into all six official languages of the United Nations, and its provisions are reflected in the first four articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Spreading the idea of human rights

From Babylon the idea of human rights quickly spread to India, Greece and eventually Rome.
There the idea of “natural law” was born, because it was observed that people tended to follow certain unwritten rules in life, and Roman law was based on rational ideas gleaned from the nature of things.

Human rights documents such as the Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628), the U.S. Constitution (1787), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), and the American Bill of Rights (1791) are the predecessors of many modern human rights documents.

The Magna Carta (1215)

The Magna Carta, signed by the King of England in 1215, was a turning point in the history of human rights.

The Magna Carta is considered the earliest document to have had a significant impact on the process of historical development that eventually led to the emergence of modern constitutional law in the English-speaking world.

In 1215, after King John of England broke a number of ancient laws and traditions that governed England,
his subjects forced him to sign the Charter of Liberties, which enumerated norms that later came to be regarded as human rights. Among these were the right of the church not to be interfered with by the state, the right of all free citizens to own and inherit property, and the right to protection against excessive taxes. The Charter
enshrined the right of widows who owned property not to remarry, and established the principles of fair trial and equality before the law. It also contained provisions outlawing bribery and official misconduct.

The Magna Carta is widely recognized as one of the most important legal documents for the development of modern democracy, and its adoption was a key milestone in the struggle for freedom.

The Petition of Right (1628)

In 1628, the English Parliament sent this statement of civil liberties to King Charles I.

The next document of historic importance to the development of human rights was the Petition of Right, drawn up in 1628 by the Parliament of England and sent to King Charles I as a statement of civil liberties. Parliament’s refusal to finance the king’s unpopular foreign policy forced his government to force loans and station troops in the homes of subjects in order to exert economic pressure. Arbitrary arrests and imprisonments for resisting these actions caused intense hostility in Parliament toward Charles and George Willers, Duke of Buckingham. The Petition of Right, initiated by Sir Edward Coke, was based on earlier statutes and charters, and enshrined four principles:
1) no taxes could be levied without the approval of Parliament;
2) no subject may be imprisoned without trial;
3) No military personnel could be stationed with civilians;
4) Military laws may not be enforced in peacetime.

Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (1776)


In 1776, Thomas Jefferson participated in the drafting of the United States Declaration of Independence.

On July 4, 1776, the U.S. Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, wrote the Declaration as an explanation of why Congress voted on July 2 to proclaim independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the American War of Independence began, and as a statement that the 13 American colonies were no longer part of the British Empire. Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms. It was originally printed on large sheets of paper and circulated widely among the populace.

Philosophically, the Declaration emphasized two themes: individual rights and revolutionary rights. These ideas gained widespread support among Americans and also became known around the world, with a particularly strong influence on the French Revolution.

The U.S. Constitution (1787) and the Bill of Rights (1791)

The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution protects the fundamental freedoms of the citizens of the United States.

The Constitution of the United States, written during the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, became the fundamental law of the U.S. federal system of government and a significant document for the entire Western world. It is the nation’s oldest constitution and is still in force today. It defines the major government agencies and their powers and the fundamental rights of citizens.

The first ten amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights) went into effect on December 15, 1791, limiting the power of the U.S. federal government and protecting the rights of all citizens, residents, and visitors on American soil.

The Bill of Rights protected freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition. It also prohibits unreasonable searches and arrests, cruel and unusual punishments, and testifying against oneself under duress. The Bill of Rights specifically prohibits Congress from making any law regarding the establishment of religion and prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In federal criminal cases, it requires a grand jury indictment for all especially serious or dishonorable crimes, guarantees a speedy public trial by an impartial jury in the county where the crime was committed, and prohibits a second prosecution prosecution for the same crime.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

In 1789, the people of France overthrew an absolute monarchy and paved the way for the creation of the first French Republic. Just six weeks after the storming of the Bastille and three weeks after the abolition of feudalism, the National Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen as a first step toward creating a constitution for the French Republic.

The Declaration declares that all citizens should be guaranteed the rights to “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. It asserts that the need for law derives from the fact that the exercise of the natural rights of every man is limited only by those limits which ensure to other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights. Thus, this Declaration regards law as “the expression of the general will” to reinforce this equality of rights and to prohibit “only those acts which are harmful to society.

First Geneva Convention (1864)

The original text of the First Geneva Convention of 1864 provided for the protection of wounded soldiers.

In 1864, representatives of sixteen European countries and several American states met in Geneva at the invitation of the Swiss Federal Council on the initiative of the Geneva Committee. This diplomatic conference was held to adopt a convention on soldiers wounded in war.

The basic principles set forth in this Convention, and preserved in subsequent Geneva Conventions, imposed an obligation to provide, without discrimination, care for wounded and sick military personnel and respect for medical vehicles and equipment, which should bear the highly visible symbol of the red cross on a white background.

United Nations (1945)

Representatives of fifty countries met in San Francisco in 1945 and formed the United Nations to protect and maintain peace.

World War II raged from 1939 to 1945, and by its end, cities across Europe and Asia were in ruins. Millions had died, many more were left without food or shelter. Soviet troops surrounded the remnants of the German army in the bombed-out German capital Berlin. In the Pacific, U.S. Marines were still fighting Japanese troops entrenched on islands such as Okinawa.

In April 1945, delegates from 50 countries gathered at a conference in San Francisco, full of optimism and hope. The purpose of this conference was to form an international body to protect peace and prevent future wars. The ideals of this organization were outlined in the preamble to the proposed charter: “We, the peoples of the United Nations, are determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.

The Charter of the new United Nations came into force on 24 October 1945, and every year since then it has been observed as UN Day.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights inspired the creation of other human rights laws and agreements around the world.

In 1948, the new UN Commission on Human Rights captured the world’s attention. Under the energetic leadership of renowned human rights activist Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of President Franklin Roosevelt and U.S. delegate to the United Nations, the Commission set about creating the document that eventually became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the inspirer of its creation, called the Declaration “the great charter of liberties for all mankind. This document was officially adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948.

The preamble and the first article of the Declaration unequivocally proclaim the inalienability of human rights for all men on earth: “Disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind The establishment of a world in which men shall have freedom of speech and belief and shall be free from fear and want is proclaimed as the highest aspiration of men. All men are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

The nations that make up the United Nations have vowed to work together to promote the realization of thirty articles of human rights, which for the first time in history have been brought together and presented in a single document. As a consequence, many of these rights, in various forms, are now part of the constitutional laws of democratic countries