Revisiting the Origins of Human Rights [Hardcover]

Scholars of history, law, theology and anthropology critically revisit the history of human rights.Over the last ten years, revisionists have increasingly challenged the previously accepted narrative of the history of human rights. This book brings together history, law, theology and anthropology scholars in order to revisit the debates.Over the last ten years, revisionists have increasingly challenged the previously accepted narrative of the history of human rights. This book brings together history, law, theology and anthropology scholars in order to revisit the debates.Did the history of human rights begin decades, centuries or even millennia ago? What constitutes this history? And what can we really learn from 'the textbook narrative' - the unilinear, forward-looking tale of progress and inevitable triumph authored primarily by Western philosophers, politicians and activists? Does such a distinguishable entity as 'the history of human rights' even exist, or are efforts to read evidence in past events of the later 'evolution' of human rights mere ideology? This book explores these questions through a collective effort by scholars of history, law, theology and anthropology. Rather than entities with an absolute, predefined 'essence', this book conceptualizes human rights as open-ended and ambiguous. It taps into recent 'revisionist' debates and asks: what do we really know of the history of human rights?Foreword. History of human rights as political intervention in the present Martti Koskenniemi; 1. Revisiting the origins of human rights: introduction Miia Halme-Tuomisaari and Pamela Slotte; Part I. Foundations: Antiquity to the Enlightenment: 2. Human rights in antiquity? Revisiting anachronism and Roman law Jacob Giltaij and Kaius Tuori; 3. Medieval natural rights discourse Virpi M?kinen; 4. Human rights and the Thomist tradition Annabel Brett; Part II. Pluralities of Discourses and Rights: The Enlightenment and Single-Issue Causes in the Nineteenth Century: 5. l“