Some early major western philosophers and "natural or human rights".

Three early thinkers on human rights:

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) argued for human rights, but only in very restricted terms. Human Rights for Hobbes were limited to the material right to life of the individual (possibly the individuals own right to peace and physical security). Hobbes, by the way was also committed to the idea of absolutizing and centralizing the state's power (a monarchy) dying 100 years prior to the adoption of the US Constitution.

John Locke (1632-1704) another English philosopher expanded the concepts of rights to liberty and property. Note that Locke is often put on a pedestal by modern day libertarians (a sort of founder of their ideals) he wrote quite clearly that when he uses the word "property" he includes the rights to liberty and and life, not just land goods and money. REF-1. Locke believed in God-given rights based on human dedication and effort. He encouraged landless farmers to claim the earth that they had cared for and tilled, as they had contributed much from their own bodies into it. He called such a right a "natural right". Locke is a good deal more complicated than modern libertarians will acknowledge. Not only did he argure for individual private property, but he also argued that "Man is a being to be preserved as much as possible and is widely acknowledged to have argued that people ought to be concerned with the preservation of all their fellow human beings. REF-2 Locke did not carefully tie in these limits on individual property rights (favoring the preservation of fellow human beings) with obligations of governments.

Jean Jaques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) a french philosopher gave prominence to the two concepts liberty, equality and fraternity. While Rousseau in general tried to mediate between the rights of the society and the individual, he stated clearly that "every man naturally a right to everything he needs for his subsistence. REF-3. Rousseau was probably the first major western philosopher to assert that there was a collective responsibility of society to assure that all have minimally that which they need to survive. For Rousseau, though, these rights are not so much natural human rights, though, as they are an early occurrence of civil rights, since they were thought to be features not of human nature itself, but of living in a republic or a democracy. Rousseau, however, does not believe any government to be legitimate (in his modern world) which did not allow participation of all citizens (adult males in his times). So one might say that these are not civil liberties of any particular democratically-styled society, as much as these were rights pertaining to all humans in any legitimately governed society. Note that even today, there is no expectation that military dictatorships coming to power through violent seizures of authority are going to demonstrate any respect for human rights.

Here, we would, again, like to recommend the book "Rethinking Human Rights for the New Millenium" by Fields. Fields has proposed a rethought foundation for considering human rights in our modern times. REF-4 Dr. Fields calls this a grounding for a holistic conception of human rights based on 10 principles. These are worth reading in detail in his book, but just to name these 10 they are:

TEN PRINCIPLES GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE NEW MILLENIUM

1. All human beings have the potential for development.
   
2. Human potential is developed within a particular web of economic, social and cultural relationships that are both facilitating and constraining on individuals. Such development entails processes of self-determination of the individual and also co-determination. Co-determination acknowledges that each of us is also aintrinsically part of his/her web of social relationships, with interests in and concerns for the people with whom he/she is interacting. REF-5
   
3. The possibilities for individual development are materially and culturally conditioned. Thus, while human rights appear as universals for all individuals they only appear and evolve at specific points in history and within particular political, cultural and economic conditions.
   
4. Further evolution of human rights is driven by the exclusion of some individuals and groups from these possibilities to develop, frustrating their aspirations. As they become aware of their exclusion and struggle for inclusion, recognition of universal human rights advances.
   
5. Resistance to and rebellion against domination by excluded individuals and groups takes the form of struggling for new structures, institutions and practices which will open up new possibilities for their development.
   
6. New structures which emerge during and from the struggles for inclusion (and against domination of a separate priveleged class) can themselves become dominating and oppressive. "Freeing slaves" in the USA in 1856 can be viewed as making these individuals available to new forms of domination and exclusion.
   
7. The core values of human rights emerge out of the struggles for inclusion themselves. Human rights are rooted in the concrete historical experiences of people who have struggled and are stuggling against domination. Active social processes (involving the broad population) for inclusion, justice, democracy and peace (or in Rousseau's terms "liberty, equality and fraternity") provide a foundation to broadly accepted and demanded human rights for a given society, or for the community of nations. These Dr. Fields calls "core values underlying human rights".
   
8. These core values (liberty, equality and fraternity) require social recognition. Human beings require recognition from other human beings that they are active conscious participants in their society, they are not just inert natural matter, nor are they social objects whose fate is to be determined and decided entirely by another class of individuals (those who unlike them are included in active society). REF-6 Fields puts it this way, "we have in this concept of social recognition the founding of law that we must relate to one another as significant moral beings rather than as objects to be dominated".
   
9. Human rights are held by individuals, but also they are held by groups and communities. At points in history rights are withheld and by nations, non-governmental groups and organizations and even sometimes by individuals. Within a society where these same rights are broadly acknowledged, these exclusions from excercise of the same rights are all abuses of the existing rights.
   
10. Social, economic and cultural rights have the same standing as political and civil rights. The criterion for human rights violations is the impediment to development within a particular web oc existing cultural, economic and social relationships. These violations have been laid out clearly in the UN Declaration of Human Rights Articles 22 - 27 and other international documents. In the USA they are part of the "supreme law of the land" with mechanism already set into place for their enforcement.