An examination of ‘human rights in history will enable a better understanding of the context in which modern notions of rights arose and thus outline the terms of what we see as the central question facing human rights today: how might it be possible to defend the rights of those who have lost the ‘right to have rights’?

Generally, what passes for the history of modern human rights focuses on the period after the Second World War – on the aftermath of the Nuremberg Trials and on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) confirmed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in December 1948. Thirty human rights were specified and expressed as a set of abstract moral claims or aspirations. However, while these rights supposedly enshrined the sanctity of individuals, at the same time, they depended upon the goodwill of nation-states to uphold them, thus consigning human rights to a crippling contradiction and an uncertain future.

It is true that, in light of the brutality of the Nazi regime, the Nuremberg Tribunal did constitute a step forwards in the defence of human rights from a legal point of view. As David Chandler explains: