In my short essay, I'm going to discuss the development of Human Rights and the different documents that forced their recognition.

Human rights are rights possessed by people simply as, and because they are, human beings. The word has only come into common speech during the 20th century.
The idea of 'human rights' is the product of 17th and 18th century European thought.
As a matter of fact the concept of human rights starte during the17th century in England: protection of people's rights (especially the right to political participation ) against an oppressive government was the catchcry of the English Revolution of 1640. In this context the Bill of Rights was estabished ( 1689 ).

The Bill of Rights dealt with the fundamental concerns of the time. It made the King subject to the rule of law, like any citizen, instead of claiming to be the law's (divine) source. It required the King to respect the power of Parliament elected by the people.Parliament protected some basic rights .It repeated some of royal promises made by King John in the Magna Carta.

Towards the end of the 18th century it was argued that it was part of God's natural law that no-one should harm anybody else in their life, health, liberty or possessions. These rights could never be given up. The existence of this natural law also established the right to do whatever was necessary to protect such rights.
These rights limited the role of government. No-one could be subjected to another's rule unless they consented. A government's responsibility became the duty to protect natural rights.

This thinking underlay the American colonies' Declaration of Independence in 1776.It ia a fundamental ducument for human rights. The Declaration underlined that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'

In 1788, as a result of the French Revolution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen asserted the primacy of natural rights.
The doctrines of human rights that we now have are direct descendants of this thinking.
A human right is 'natural' in that every one owns them, not because they are subject to any particular system of law or religious or political administration. They can be asserted against individuals, but they express the political objective: that governments must respect, protect and promote them.

Last but not least, an other vey important document for human rights is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights dated 1948.
After the document pubblication many nations incorporated rights into their national constitutions .
The most common 'universal' rights are the right to life; to freedom; to own property; citizenship rights ; rights to standards of good behaviour by governments , and social, economic and cultural rights. Respect for human rights is becoming a universal principle of good government.

In order to understand the concept of human rights we analysed also Martin Luther King 's oration now known as " I Have a Dream ".
In 1950's America, the equality of man envisioned by the Declaration of Independence was far from a reality. People of color, blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, were discriminated against in many ways, both overt and covert. The 1950's were a turbulent time in America, when racial barriers began to come down due to Supreme Court decisions, like Brown v. Board of Education; and due to an increase in the activism of blacks, fighting for equal rights. Martin Luther King was a driving force in the push for racial equality in the 1950's and the 1960's. In 1963, King and his staff focused on Birmingham, Alabama. They marched and protested non-violently, raising the ire of local officials who sicced water cannon and police dogs on the marchers, whose ranks included teenagers and children. The bad publicity and break-down of business forced the white leaders of Birmingham to concede to some anti-segregation demands.
Thrust into the national spotlight in Birmingham, where he was arrested and jailed, King organized a massive march on Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he evoked the name of Lincoln in his "I Have a Dream" speech, which is credited with mobilizing supporters of desegregation and prompted the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

If we go back in time, another important document of the Enlightenment, which prepared the way for the new ideas of the Romantic age, was the tratise by the Italian economist, jurist and scholar Cesare Beccaria.He was concerned with the law regulating punishment for crimes, in particular the death penalty " Dei Delitti e delle Pene ".