The Truth of Human Rights

Abstract

The chapter discusses human rights in history. It addresses the question of whether insights into rights are historically relative. Are beliefs about the legitimacy of rights the mortal children of time? To approach an answer to this question, the chapter outlines the proper methods to study the history of rights. It shows that it is not sufficient to focus on explicit conceptions of rights. Rights can form the implicit content of social struggles and may be expressed by the means of art. Conceptions of history underlying human rights histories are discussed. The development of the human rights idea since the American and French revolutions is reconstructed. The chapter recalls the genesis of the post-1945 system of protection of human rights in the context of major geopolitical developments, including the Cold War und decolonization. It addresses, moreover, the thesis that human rights originated in the Global North. It tries to do justice to the many contributions of the Global South to the development of human rights and to dispel the fog of amnesia hiding the policies of mayor powers of the Global North violating human rights, including but not limited to colonial wars.