The History of Human Rights

“It’s strange to think of human rights as having a history, much less a controversial one. Could anyone but a monster deny that every person has a right to be free and equal, to be protected against torture and censorship, to have enough to eat? Our reverence for human rights is so instinctive that, in the 21st century, whenever we see a gross injustice being committed, the most powerful objection we know how to raise is that someone’s human rights are being violated—whether it is Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib or women sentenced to stoning in Iran.”