The concept of rights is said to have originated in the medieval period and, as Isaiah Berlin has mentioned, the notion of individual rights was absent from the legal conception of Greeks and Romans.27 Andrew Vincent corroborates this position and says that the notion of rights is comparatively recent. The concept of jus as ‘right’ in Roman Law is closer to modern concept of ‘justice’ than the concept of ‘right’ as we understand in term of social and political claims.28 In fact, as Clayton and Tomlinson have pointed out, trace of the notion of rights may be linked to natural rights.29 In contemporary times, political debate on rights occupies a central position and the debate has largely been due to different grounds that have been invoked for justification of rights. Broadly, three traditions can be identified as theoretical grounds relating to rights—Liberal—individualist position, Marxian position and Human Rights position. These theories basically focus on matters of origin, grounds of claim of rights and their nature.
Based on origin, grounds on which rights are claimed and justified, we may discuss the following theories:
- Theory of Natural Rights
- Theory of Legal Rights
- Theory of Moral-Ideal Rights
- Theory of Historical Rights
- Theory of Social-Welfare Rights
- Theory of Human Rights
- Marxian Theory of Rights
Theories based on natural rights, legal rights, idealistic rights, historical rights and social-welfare rights are generally within the liberal-individualist framework. The Marxian theory of rights invokes class nature of rights. Human rights theory may be treated as a combination of various grounds and recognizes individual and group bases of rights.
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