Ph.D. Lecturer Maria- Cristina Otovescu University of Craiova (otocris@yahoo.com) Résumé:
L'histoire des droits de l'homme peut être étudiée commençant par les idées fondamentales de quelques conceptions antiques philosophiques, et son problème spécifique est lié au combat pour l'égalité et la liberté. Seulement dans la période moderne, l'idée des droits de l'homme a été formulée sur le but, dans le journal de certains philosophes classiques tels que John Locke et Thomas Hobbes.
Keywords: liberty, human rights, responsibility, philosopher
In present times, the protection and the promotion of human rights and of its fundamental liberties represent an important preoccupation for all the world’s states. In all domains, human rights represent the foundation of a peaceful cohabitation: in the national and international politics but also in the residence city and within the family. Human rights are created for all people and everybody should enjoy them. This is why everybody should know about human rights.
The problem of human rights is one of the main themes of present political life and it is related to the evolution of global issues of humanity, such as security, peace, and social development. Starting from antiquity, people believed they had certain rights.
The reflections on the human condition since ancient times, signaled the necessity of certain fundamental rights and the fact that they cannot be ignored. The interest for the individual and its social environment generated the discovery and development of some eternal values, such as: good, truth, justice, beauty, duty, freedom, responsibility etc., which are directing the course of human existence, becoming gradually the object of study of certain specialty disciplines.
According to some opinions, the history of conceptions regarding human rights has its origins in the 7th century B.C., at the emergence of the Hammurabi Code, where it is stated that people can not be tortured or enslaved and they can not be deprived of their fortune without a fair judgement.
In the Roman law of the XII tables (451 B.C.) it was mentioned that the rights of citizens, such as the right to property, the right to be free, the right of a fair judgement, the right to choose governors, to protest, and the right to happiness.
The Roman conception regarding the rights has its basis on the Stoic philosophy that represented the world as a single community in which all people were brothers. This belief in the equality of people, no matter the race, social class or rank, is situated at the origin of the concept of natural right. So conceptions regarding human rights are found in Stoic, Greek naturalist and ancient Roman philosophy systems, this fact being possible due to the extension of the economical, political and cultural relations of the Ancient Greek,
because by the year 410 B.C. the philosophers of this country started understanding the relation between the laic, walled state, religion and individual. The Roman law, another pillar of the world’s culture and civilization, has an important role in protecting the citizens by the law, in sustaining everyone’s equality in front of the law.
The history of human rights can be studied starting with the fundamental ideas of some philosophical antique conceptions, and its specific problem is related to the fight for equality and freedom. Only in the modern period, the idea of human rights was formulated on purpose, in the papers of some classical philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. “There are two main angles from which the concept of freedom can be viewed, one is philosophical, which sees the human preponderantly in himself, wants to understand his intimate resorts, and sees freedom wondering if the human indeed has it, if the feeling of freedom is not damaged by the internal fights of each person, if that person is not submissive to an inexorable determinism, if the individual doesn’t need the other for being free etc.; and a judicial one, which assumes, from the beginning, that the human only exists like social human being, and his freedom can only be understood like a relation and that can only be interpreted from a strictly material point of view, like a maximum of facilities and possibilities to choose of individuals”1.
The Greeks set the foundation for democracy. The ancient Greek philosophy, represented by Plato and Aristotle, was and continues to be one of the pillars of the world’s culture and civilization.
With Athenian democracy, the fundaments of belief and the evolution of human rights were settled. Plato pointed out the distinction between ideas and culture or tradition.
In his paper, Protagoras, where Hipias professes a true belief of an universal nature, common for all people and of a difference between phusis (nature) and nomos (convention), Plato asserted: “All of you that are here present, I consider you parents, related, citizens by nature, if not especially by law. By nature, the human being is the parent of humans, but the tyrannical law of people opposes nature by its contrast.”2
In his fundamental paper, De jure belli ac pacis, Hugo Grotius studies the problem of human rights, characterizing them by: Alieni abstinentia – respect for everything that is other’s, life, goods, honesty etc.; Promissorum implendorum oblgcatio – respect for one’s commitments; Damni culpa dati reparatio – repair of damages caused to another person;
Poenae inter homines meritum – the equitable punishment of those who violate these principles3.
In Ancient Greece the Sophists advanced, in a specific way, the thesis that man is the master of his own destiny. Socrates centered his philosophical discourse on human beings, adopting the principle “Have a good knowledge of yourself” (which was written on the frontispiece of the Oracle of Delphi). In his turn, Plato considered that “it is not necessary [...] to answer with injustice or to harm a human being, no matter what he did to us”4.
The philosopher Protagoras from Abdera, in his paper On the human being, considered that “man is the measure of all things”5. The Roman jurist-consultant Ulpian,
1 A se vedea I. Dogaru, S. Cercel, D.C.Dănişor, Întreţinerea în contextul drepturilor fundamentale, Ed. Themis, Craiova, 2001, p.9
2 M.I.J. Chevalier, Cours d'histire des Ideés Politiques, Paris, 1957, p.161
3 V.I. Hatnianu, Istoria doctrinelor juridice, Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine”, Bucureşti, 1996, p. 65
4 Platon, Oeuvres completes, Tome Premier, Libraire Garnier, Freres, Paris, 1936, p. 206
5 A se vedea Dicţionar de filosofie, Ed. Univers –Enciclopedic, Bucureşti, 1996, p. 275
making a judicial synthesis of the great humanistic ideas, pointed that, in essence, the law’s principles should be: have a honest life, do not destroy what belongs to others and to ascribe to every person all that belongs to him1.
The concepts of freedom and equality are found very often in Socrates’ sentences and reflections, in Seneca’s reflections about the human being who condemned slavery and idealized freedom.
Aristotle, in his work Politics, pointed to equality in rights, sustaining that “only by law someone becomes slave or free, by nature there are no differences between people”2.
The ancient philosophers of Egypt, Babylon, India and China have also given different explanations regarding human nature. Through their works, they settled its place and role in society, which proves that human rights were presented in the considered law systems, being mentioned the rules that were imposed by kings, emperors, etc.
References :
1. Aristotel, Politica, Editura Naţională, Bucureşti, 1924
2. Dicţionar de filosofie, Ed. Univers –Enciclopedic, Bucureşti, 1996
3. Dogaru, S. Cercel, D.C.Dănişor, Întreţinerea în contextul drepturilor fundamentale, Ed. Themis, Craiova, 2001
4. M.I.J. Chevalier, Cours d'histire des Ideés Politiques, Paris, 1957
5. Platon, Oeuvres completes, Tome Premier, Libraire Garnier, Freres, Paris, 1936
6. V. Duculescu, Protecţia juridică a drepturilor omului, Ed. Lumina Lex, Bucureşti, 1998
7. V.I. Hatnianu, Istoria doctrinelor juridice, Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine”, Bucureşti, 1996
1 V. Duculescu, Protecţia juridică a drepturilor omului, Ed. Lumina Lex, Bucureşti, 1998, p.20
2 Aristotel, Politica, Editura Naţională, Bucureşti, 1924, p. 24