From Natural Law to Natural or Human Rights: Conceptual Analysis and Historical Roots

A close reading of academic literature reveals that there are different approaches over the relation between ‘natural right/human rights’ and ‘natural law’. One approach maintains that there is an unbridgeable gap between these concepts. This highlights that natural rights emergence dates to a later period compared with natural law tradition. In addition, it articulates that there is no conceptual consistency between these concepts: natural rights’ propositions are morally neutral claims which identify our liberties while natural law principles are duty-based moral obligations. Critically analysing these issues, this paper argues for a close connection between a doctrine of natural or human rights and the tradition of natural law from the historical and conceptual perspective. The essay ends with an argument suggesting that the emergence of natural rights doctrine roots in, and has evolved from, the longstanding tradition of Scholastic natural law theory.