What are Human Rights?
By Rachel Reardon
Last semester, I took a class called “History of Human Rights,” taught by Dr. Elizabeth Kolsky. I was intrigued by a history class that did not seem to fixate on a certain time period, and as an aspiring lawyer, social justice issues that I am passionate about overlap with the topic of human rights. While the class was not easy, it ended up being my favorite course that I have taken at Villanova.
I want to share with you some of the ideas that I learned not only from that class but also from my own research on the subject. I think there is a large misconception about what human rights really are. We tend to swap out terms such as natural rights and civil rights, but these are very different. For example, a lot of times in the United States people cite the Bill of Rights as the exhaustive list of rights extended to American citizens (which is not in line with what the founding fathers intended for the document). In reality, though, the term “human rights” was not used until 1831. This is not to say that the formative ideas of human rights were not brewing before the nineteenth century; on the contrary, some scholars argue that human rights’ origination coincided with the beginnings of the modern, major religions. Yet, the idea of ensuring human rights for all was not the motivating factor of the founding fathers; for example, in their constitution, they denied Black people the right of full personhood.
Rather, the founding father largely drew from the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau and Hobbes. Their philosophies emphasized natural rights—the rights that are natural to man. These are not the same as human rights, as they were formulated in a sexist, racist culture. Just after World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations was established, distinguishing much from the idea of natural rights of life, liberty, and property. Included in the Declaration are rights such as the right to not be enslaved, the right to seek asylum from persecution, and the right to rest and leisure. There are so many more that are nowhere listed in the Constitution. The United States is a member of the U.N.; thus, the United States is expected to abide by and enforce these rights actively. Truthfully, though, human rights remain a lovely idea to pursue rather than an accessible reality for Americans. Some argue that the United States should not take orders from an overarching institution such as the United Nations. Yet, our nation has been wrong on several occasions regarding the rights of its people. Perhaps it is time to take a cue from other countries. I believe that the next step of improving societal conditions in the United States is implementing the basic human rights of the Declaration.
So, when you hear someone say, “healthcare is a human right,” it really technically is. Sometimes, we need to look beyond the confines of the United States in order to find truths. Just because our government does not guarantee every human right listed in the Declaration does not mean such a notion is impossible. I’m also not saying it is easy for the legislative bodies in the United States to make this happen overnight; the U.S. Constitution was created over a hundred years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was, and we have had less than one hundred years to adapt. But I do think that we need to focus on implementing these rights into our laws to uphold our contribution to the U.N.
