INTRODUCTION to the SPECIAL ISSUE: <i>HUMAN RIGHTS AS A DEVELOPING CONCEPT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN</i>

Human rights have never been more important in the Mediterranean—or appealed to more frequently—than they are today. Whenever one sovereign nation claims the territory of another, or two ethnic groups fight over a single piece of land, or a tyrannical ruler represses his own people, the objections to such acts of violence in the Mediterranean, as elsewhere, are almost always expressed in terms of the violation of the victims’ human rights.1 But amid all these appeals to human rights, it is often not clear exactly what human rights are, and how this concept originated.Human rights can be defined as the inherent rights that every individual can claim simply by being human, irrespective of their nationality, citizenship status, or position in society.2 For a list of the most essential human rights, many scholars turn to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, in the wake of the horrors of World War II.3 The Universal Declaration proclaims in its Preamble, that the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.” It goes on to declare (among other things) that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person” (Article 3); that “no one shall be held in slavery or servitude” (Article 4); that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government” (Article 21); and that “all are equal before the law” (Article 7). Included among the many specific rights it guarantees are “the right to freedom of opinion and expression” (Article 19); “the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty” (Article 11); and “the right to take part in the government . . . [either] directly or through freely chosen representatives” (Article 21).4The thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have become the basis for the modern human rights movement and have provided a foundation for numerous postwar treaties and constitutions, including the modern constitutions of Italy and Germany.5 But the rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration did not arise ex nihilo; they were based on earlier declarations and expressions of human rights.6 What were those earlier expressions? There is widespread agreement that many of the articles of the Universal Declaration are based on the rights and freedoms expressed in the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789).7 But here the consensus ends. Some scholars, such as the historian Lynn Hunt, stress the originality of these Enlightenment documents and point to the unprecedented nature of their demands that human rights be recognized and even guaranteed by governments representing their constituents.8 But others point out that expressions of human rights can be found in our earliest literary works.9 Jacques Maritain, one of the prime movers of the Universal Declaration, has written that although the “systematic proclamation of declarations of human rights” is fairly recent, the “history of the philosophic discussion of human rights” goes back to antiquity.10 It is this philosophical underpinning of human rights that we would like to explore in this special issue of Mediterranean Studies.Before discussing the articles in this issue, I would first like to address the question of whether the concept of ‘universal human rights’ has any valid meaning. It has frequently been claimed that “the whole idea of ‘universal’ human rights is actually a gigantic fraud, where Western imperialist or ex-colonial powers try to pass off their own, very specific and localized, ideas of what ‘rights’ should be as universal, trampling roughly over everyone else’s beliefs and traditions.”11 This criticism is what Amartya Sen has called the “cultural critique” of human rights, the idea that “human rights, to justify that name, demand universality, but there are no such universal values,” and hence there are no universal human rights.12Sen cautions these critics not “to extrapolate backward from the present.”13 Sen points out that “Western democracy” is a relatively recent, post-Enlightenment concept, and should not be confused with long-term values that have been accepted by many cultures throughout the world over millennia. Using “personal freedom” and “tolerance of others” as examples, Sen shows that philosophical traditions such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and classical Indian philosophies have long supported these values.14This type of cultural critique was anticipated by the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947, and to address it, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sent out a questionnaire to a large number of leading scholars and statesmen from member states throughout the world, asking their views on human rights and in particular whether or not a universal declaration of human rights was possible.15 The answers that UNESCO received were surprisingly similar, focusing on “widely shared norms . . . [in the areas of] political and civil liberties and social and economic rights.”16 Glendon explains that “several respondents from non-Western backgrounds noted that the sources of human rights were present in their traditions, even though the language of rights was a relatively modern European development.”17 A number of these responses were later published, and they include thinkers from Confucian, Hindu, and Islamic traditions.18 These widely varying traditions all stress the values of human dignity, personal freedom, tolerance of differences, and the importance of mutual duties and obligations, with the understanding that these common standards “can be brought to life in different cultures in a legitimate variety of ways.”19As for the objection that such broadly based expressions of values are meaningless without specific guidelines for implementation, I would counter that an official and public “recognition of certain universally valid principles and standards of behavior”20—such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—can provide a highly effective basis for a human rights campaign in a variety of specific political contexts.This special issue of Mediterranean Studies, then, focuses on the broad concept of human rights, showing how that concept has developed over time and how it seems to require further development. We do not intend this issue to be a comprehensive treatment of human rights or even an overview of the topic. It is, however, intended to broaden the conversation about this concept in the hope that this will not only lead to a deeper understanding of what human rights are, but also that it may provide us with new ways of putting these ideas into practice. We believe that human rights were not invented at any one time or in any one place.21 Rather, the idea that human beings have inherent rights simply by being human is as old as human consciousness itself, and it is expressed in humanity’s earliest literary works. Furthermore, we believe that our current understanding of these rights is not complete; it continues to develop along with changing social and political conditions and economic needs. With these principles in mind, we offer four, very different contributions to the understanding of human rights as a developing concept in the Mediterranean region, in the hope that a deeper understanding of human rights can lead to more effective action.Sue Shapiro opens the issue with a discussion of “The Foundations of Human Rights in Ancient Greek Thought.” Shapiro argues that, while the ancient Greeks did not have a fully developed concept of human rights, several key aspects of human rights were prominent in their writings. Specifically, Shapiro shows how the quality of empathy (an important prerequisite for human rights) was foregrounded in some of the earliest Greek literary and historical works. She also discusses the concept of equality before the law (emphasized in Solon’s political poetry) as well as the multi-valent word, themis. As a proper noun, Themis is the goddess of justice among both gods and men; she also presides over the natural order (such as the regular progression of the seasons). But as an abstract concept, themis means both the right thing to do and a person’s right to do it.Turning from ancient Greece to Rome, Darryl Phillips discusses “Voting Rights as Human Rights in Ancient Rome.” Whereas the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen served as the catalyst for the extension of voting rights in eighteenth-century France, Phillips argues that that the incorporation of new citizens into the Roman state and the extension of political rights to newcomers was a foundational value of the Romans. The stories that the Romans told about their own early history reflect this ideal, and reveal it to be a special concern in the first century BCE. At this time the Romans were grappling with the challenge of maintaining active political rights as citizens lived at ever greater distances from the city of Rome. In this context, Phillips suggests that the extraordinary development of a new type of mail-in ballot, conceived by Augustus in the late first century BCE, provides practical evidence that the Romans viewed voting rights as fundamental to all people living in Italy.Turning to the seventeenth century, Susan Rosenstreich presents the complex story of Jean Paulmier’s 1664 work, Mémoires touchant l’etablissement d’une mission chrestienne dans le troisième monde. In this work, Paulmier petitions Pope Alexander VII for the privilege of setting up a mission in an unexplored region of the recently discovered New World identified on maps of the time as the Terra australis, or the Southern Land. Claiming to be a descendant of a native of this land who had been brought to France over a century earlier, Paulmier draws on the traditional law of ius Gentium, or the Law of Peoples, long in effect in much of the Mediterranean, to argue that the natives of the region have the inalienable right to own the land they inhabit and to determine for themselves what courses of action will best serve their interests. Though Paulmier may (or may not) have fabricated the entire story of his ties to the natives of the Southern Land, Rosenstreich makes the case that his portrayal of his “borrowed” people offers an image of them as moral agents, professing individual rights through their unique relationship with the land they inhabit.Finally, Scott Juall addresses the distressing contemporary problem of undocumented migrants who die while trying to reach another country. Do they have the right for their remains to be identified and repatriated to their original homeland? Almost everyone would agree that they should have this right, but it is unclear how this could be arranged (or who would pay for it). In his article, “Of Corpses, Clothing and Compassion: The Human Rights of Unidentified Deceased Migrants in Chus Gutiérrez’s Retorno a Hansala (2008),” Juall focuses on a 2008 film, Return to Hansala, based on a true story, in which a Spanish funeral director takes it upon himself to return the clothing of some Moroccans who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to cross over to Spain. The funeral director’s heroic efforts to return the migrants’ clothing to their relatives in Morocco, the relatives’ immense gratitude for his kindness, and the lack of any institutional support for his mission, drive home the point that human rights today are far from being fully recognized, and certainly not fully realized.While these four, very different articles, discuss a wide range of Mediterranean places, time periods, and circumstances, a number of common themes tie them together. Perhaps most striking is the theme of empathy or compassion for those who are marginalized and outcast from society. As presented in Shapiro’s and Juall’s articles, empathy or compassion is the beginning of human rights; it is the sine qua non, without which human rights cannot begin to be realized. Rosenstreich’s article shows the importance of empathy in the form of recognizing the humanity of the “other.” By identifying himself with the Indian other, Paulmier hints that a true community can exist only when everyone’s rights are respected.A second theme is the importance of political rights, such as voting rights and the right to equal treatment under the law. As Phillips’s article demonstrates, citizenship rights are a key element of human rights, and it is difficult to conceive of one without the other. The individual’s right to vote and to be governed by impartial laws helps to ensure that governments are answerable to their citizens. Phillips explains how the Roman practice of extending the vote to recently conquered peoples exemplifies this principle.A final theme that deserves to be mentioned is the concept of natural rights. A precursor to the modern concept of human rights, the idea of natural rights was developed by Roman jurists and taken up by Medieval churchmen and scholars. As Rosenstreich shows, the concept of natural rights provides the justification for the early formulations of human rights. Shapiro’s discussion of the ancient Greek goddess Themis, who embodies both divine and human justice as well as the laws of nature, hints that the concept of natural rights begins very early. Although it is impossible to pursue this topic here, it is a fertile area for future research.As noted above, a single journal issue cannot possibly provide an overview of this complex topic. But we hope that our articles will introduce some new ideas and broaden the conversation about a topic that touches us all.