American Principles
Where Do Rights Come From?
The notion of freedom makes no sense, in the political sense of the term, absent a concept of human rights. Rights are to freedom what air is to breathing; without rights, freedom would be as inconceivable as life in the vacuum of space.
A right being something to which a person is entitled, the most significant feature of a right is its origin. For example, if I have a legal claim on an inheritance, it is because the legator has left me a bequest in his will. Such a right is specific to me and the other legatees. No one else is entitled to it; it owes its existence entirely to the decision of the legator.
A right may also be conferred upon an entire class of people, such as the whole citizenry of a country, state, or other legal jurisdiction. In the United States and many other countries whose legal systems ultimately derive from the English common law, all citizens enjoy the right to a trial by jury — a right not acknowledged by many other legal traditions, such as those of continental Europe, most of which ultimately stem from Roman codes of law like those of Justinian and Theodosius. Such statutory rights as trial by jury are manmade, originating in legislatures and legal precedents over centuries of experience.
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