ABSTRACT In his 1664 work, Mémoires touchant l’etablissement d’une mission chrestienne dans le troisième monde, the Abbé Jean Paulmier petitioned Pope Alexander VII for the privilege of establishing a mission in the unexplored territory known on maps of the time as Terra australis, the Southern Land. Unusual for the time, Paulmier was concerned for the rights of native inhabitants of this land and invoked the customary law of ius Gentium to make the case that, as original inhabitants of their land, natives have the right to ownership of it and to the individual exercise of their own free will. Ius gentium specifies this package of individual rights, but natives claim them through their unique relationship with the land they inhabit.

ABSTRACT Articles 13, 14, and 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) address migration, but they do not outline protocols for handling unidentified undocumented migrants who die in transit, nor does it provide procedures for repatriating unidentified bodies. The lack of universal regulations requiring states to abide by specific plans of action for dealing with these issues is a violation of human rights, for both the direct victims—those who die or go missing during their migration—and the indirect victims—their family members. Retorno a Hansala, directed by Chus Gutiérrez, draws attention to these predicaments. Seventeen undocumented migrants from Morocco drown while crossing the Mediterranean when their boat capsizes. A funeral parlor owner named Martín responds to the crisis with compassion. He repatriates the corpse of the sole identified decedent to Hansala, a village in Morocco where these undocumented migrants come from, and transports the clothing of the remaining unidentified corpses to attempt to identify them. Martín’s compassionate response is revealed in his perseverance in overcoming the obstacles he faces throughout the film. This article examines how corpses, clothing, and compassion intersect in Martín’s efforts to uphold the human rights of both the deceased and their families.

ABSTRACT This article argues, against those scholars who locate the origin of human rights in the late eighteenth century, that expressions of human rights have always existed and can be found in our earliest literary works, even though the concept may not have been fully articulated. Focusing on archaic and early classical Greek literature (c. 725–430 BCE), this article discusses empathy for marginalized people in the Odyssey and in Herodotus’s Histories, equality before the law in Solon’s poems, and the concept of themis (justice or right) in Homer. The article concludes that human rights is a developing concept whose foundations are clearly present in ancient Greek thought. The point is also made that the eighteenth-century thinkers who defined human rights for the modern world were well aware of the classical precedents that shaped their thinking.

ABSTRACT The author thanks colleagues at the University of Gibraltar and individuals in the city of Gibraltar for hosting the 2025 Congress of the Mediterranean Studies Association, where this speech was originally given.

ABSTRACT Although we lack any statement that identifies political rights as human rights in ancient Rome, this article explores the idea that Romans viewed voting rights as a fundamental aspect of their Republican system. Foundation myths that the Romans told about their own state stress the importance of incorporating new people as citizens. Reflecting these tales, the Romans were unusually generous in extending the franchise to allies, conquered enemies, and even former slaves. As citizenship was extended across the Italian peninsula, the Roman system faced new challenges as citizens had to travel ever greater distances to the city of Rome to exercise their political rights. It is in this context that the Romans developed an innovative system of casting ballots in local cities that would be transported to Rome at the time of elections. This article argues that the introduction of a postal ballot in Rome in the late first century BCE, two millennia before its reintroduction in the modern world, offers practical evidence that the Romans viewed voting rights as foundational for all people living in their state.

Gibraltar, the small promontory that guards the confluence of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, was the site of the 2025 meeting of the Mediterranean Studies Association. The history of this prominence is a reminder that the Mediterranean world is not isolated from the rest of the planet. As we write this introduction, human rights are under attack in countries around the globe, including in the United States of Ameria. As governments seek to expand their powers at the expense of human rights, it seems appropriate to devote a special issue of Mediterranean Studies to consider the origin, development, and future direction of these rights as a concept in the Mediterranean world. While some might question the value of a scholarly analysis in times of crisis (“this is the time for action, not academic discourse”), we would argue that new ideas are more likely to emerge from thoughtful analysis and collaborative discussion than from impulsive action. The goal of this special issue is to raise new topics for discussion and to broaden the purview of some perennial ones, as we consider how the concept of human rights has developed (and will continue to develop) in the Mediterranean region.In the following articles, the authors grapple with questions about this concept: what are human rights, how have they been reflected in the Mediterranean region, and what directions might these efforts take in the future? In considering these questions, we have sought insights and inspiration from sources that date from the earliest known records of human thought, to Roman histories and inscriptions, to a possibly fictitious early modern travel account, to online media published only months ago. But we have also brought to bear our own fields of expertise and our personal experiences to formulate the answers presented in our articles. The answer that emerges from the issue as a whole is that, though we struggle to define human rights, the belief in them has always been a hope for conditions that would allow individuals—every individual—to flourish and to make positive contributions to their communities.The two-year process of discussion and writing about these issues has been intensely collaborative, involving reading groups, panel presentations, and reciprocal editing, although each author is solely responsible for his or her own article. We have all learned a great deal from this process. We are also deeply appreciative of the careful reading John Watkins devoted to our articles, leading us to consider new aspects of issues we thought we knew. His participation in our project as an outside reader exemplifies the spirit of the Mediterranean Studies Association. We are here to engage with each other, to contribute to ongoing conversations that lead us to better understand the Mediterranean world, and to express that understanding in panels at the annual Congress of the Mediterranean Studies Association and on the pages of Mediterranean Studies. This special issue is a tribute to the spirit of our organization.