Development And Human Rights: An Introduction To Human Rights

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1. Introduction to Human Rights Human rights as we think of them today, are similar to how President LS Senghor presented them in his Opening Address at the Dakar African experts meeting in 1979: “Malcolm Adiseshish proposed to us of development and human rights (and) corresponds to our own conception of development: ‘A form of humanism; a moral and spiritual fact, both material and practical; an expression of (humans) as a whole meeting (their) material needs (food, clothes, shelter) as well as (their) moral requirements (peace, compassion, freedom, charity) ...’. In this conception, development, the right of peoples, respects humans and their freedoms.” (Senghor, 1979) Today we also think of human rights as having developed in three generations based on the …show more content…

The civil society is a community of free human beings.” (Global Ethic Foundation, 2015) 2. Development of modern human rights Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) significantly introduced the idea of Liberty, Equality and Independence to human rights philosophy. This means that in an ideal situation, every man should be free to make his own decisions about all matters that affect him; that all men are equal; and that independence of thought and action were paramount to achieving individual (and thus society’s) happiness. (Shestack, 1998) John Rawls (1921-2002) developed the idea of human rights as justice and justice as fairness. He also developed the Original Position/Veil of Ignorance theory: the idea that the only way to ensure a fair system of laws was to blind the decision-makers as to their own identity and then for them to decide the rules of the society. This highlights very clearly the level to which human self-interest mars our ability to be fair. (Shestack,

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