Human rights and the liberal tradition

Abstract

This chapter analyses the historical relationship between liberalism, liberal legalism and human rights. It begins with an examination of the natural rights of the individual and the social contract to institute sovereign power as a means of securing those rights. It references eg. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Paine. The chapter then moves away from the tradition of the social contract, into the 19th Century, with an examination of, say, Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill. Then, further analyses of rights within liberalism are undertaken with reference to the egalitarian ideals of John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin compared to the libertarian ones of Friedrich von Hayek and Robert Nozick. The chapter concludes with a liberal defence of individual rights in times of emergency, from Jeremy Waldron and Lucia Zedner, following eg. the Islamist terror attacks on America on 11 September 2001.