Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T01:51:45.049Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘Endowed by Their Creator’?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Lord Bingham
Affiliation:
Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and Senior Law Lord
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Mainstream religion has little more than an indirect concern with the fundamental nature of human rights. Scripture provides no basis for any systematic code, albeit it espouses the virtues of equality, non-discrimination, and respect for others. There remains within regligious organisations an uncritical respect for authority and repeated emphasis on the dominance of the male. Rather, the articulation of human rights as a coherent and justiciable entity was the product of political turmoil, rebellion and war. That the expression of such rights is consistent with Christian teaching, however, is to be welcomed and valued. This article is an edited version of the Warburton Lecture delivered by Lord Bingham in Lincoln's Inn, London, on 15 June 2003. It is reproduced with permission.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2005

References

1 See Rasmussen, , ‘Human Environmental Rights and/or Biotic Rights’, in Gustavson, and Juviler, (eds), Religion and Human Rights: Competing Claims? (Armonk, New York; ME Sharpe, London, 1999), pp 3652.Google Scholar

2 Sepet v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] 1 WLR 856, [2003] UKHL 15, HL.Google Scholar

3 Stackhouse, , ‘Human Rights and Public Theology: The Basic Validation of Human Rights’, in Gustavson, and Juviler, (eds), Religion and Human Rights at p 18.Google Scholar

4 Cassin, René, ‘From the Ten Commandments to the Rights of Man’ (1969), in Shoham, Shlomo (ed), Of Law and Man – Essays in Honor of Haim H. Cohn (Sabra, New York, 1971), pp 1325:Google Scholar also available at http://www.udhr.org/history/tencomms.htm.

5 Henkin, , ‘Human Rights: Religious or Englightened?’, in Gustavson, and Juviler, (eds), Religion and Human Rights at p 32.Google Scholar The quotation is from Deuteronomy, 12:8, where the context indicates clear disapproval of such an approach.

6 Matt 22: 36–40.Google Scholar

7 Lev 19: 18 and see Matt 19: 19.Google Scholar

8 Crahan, , ‘Religion and Societal Change: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America’, in Gustavson, and Juviler, (eds), Religion and Human Rights ch 6.Google Scholar

9 Ps 92: 12–13.Google Scholar

10 Ps 8: 4.Google Scholar

11 Ps 144: 3.Google Scholar

12 Ps 22: 6.Google Scholar

13 Ps 31: 12.Google Scholar

14 Ps 38: 8.Google Scholar

15 Ps 39: 5.Google Scholar

16 Ps 60: 11.Google Scholar

17 Ps 69: 20.Google Scholar

18 Ps 84: 10b.Google Scholar

19 Ps 88: 6.Google Scholar

20 Ps 94: 11.Google Scholar

21 Ps 102: 6–7, 11.Google Scholar

22 Ps 103: 15–16.Google Scholar

23 Ps 118: 8–9.Google Scholar

24 Ps 146: 3–4.Google Scholar

25 Ps 14: 3: Ps 53: 3.Google Scholar

26 Rom 2: 11.Google Scholar

27 Rom 10: 12.Google Scholar

28 1 Cor 12: 13.Google Scholar

29 Gal 3: 28.Google Scholar

30 Col 3: 11.Google Scholar

31 1 Cor 6: 6–7.Google Scholar

32 Rom 13: 1–7.Google Scholar

33 Eph 6: 9; Col 4: 1.Google Scholar

34 Eph 6: 5.Google Scholar

35 Col 3: 22.Google Scholar

36 Eph 6: 1.Google Scholar

37 Col 3: 20.Google Scholar

38 1 Tim 4: 12.Google Scholar

39 1 Cor 11: 9.Google Scholar

40 1 Tim 2: 11–14.Google Scholar

41 Col 3: 18.Google Scholar

42 Greenberg, , ‘Feminism, Jewish Orthodoxy, and Human Rights: Strange Bedfellows?’ in Gustavson, and Juviler, (eds), Religion and Human Rights p 150.Google Scholar

43 Ibid p 146.

44 Ibid p 147.

45 Ibid p 148.

46 Ibid p 148.

47 Ibid p 149.

48 Ibid p 149.

49 Ibid p 149.

50 Ibid p 150.

51 Mayer, , ‘Islamic Law and Human Rights: Conundrums and Equivocations’ in Gustavson, and Juviler, (eds), Religion and Human Rights p 178.Google Scholar

52 Boyle, and Sheen, (eds) Freedom of Religion and Belief (Routledge, London, 1997) p 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Kokkinakis v Greece (1993) 17 EHRR 397, ECtHR; Larissis v Greece (1998) 27 EHRR 329, ECtHR.Google Scholar

54 Boyle, and Sheen, (eds) Freedom of Religion and Belief pp 1213.Google Scholar

55 Chaps 39, 40 of Magna Carta, 1215.Google Scholar

56 See Lauren, , The Evolution of International Human Rights (1998) p 13.Google Scholar

57 Petition of Right 1627 (3 Cha 1, c 1), Art V.Google Scholar

58 ‘The Putney Debates: The Debate on the Franchise (1647)’, conveniently found in Wootton, (ed) Divine Right and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England (Penguin, 1986), p 286.Google Scholar

59 Lauren, , The Evolution of Human Rights p 31.Google Scholar

60 Hunt, , The French Revolution and Human Rights (1996), pp 18, 21 and 26.Google Scholar

61 Simpson, AWB, Human Rights and the End of Empire (2001), pp 172173.Google Scholar

62 Ibid chs 4–8.

63 Ibid p 91.

64 See Demerieux, , Fundamental Rights in Commonwealth Caribbean Constitutions (Faculty of Law Library, University of the West Indies, Barbados, 1992).Google Scholar

65 Gen 1: 26.Google Scholar

66 Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2.Google Scholar

67 Herbert, George, The Temple; The Church Porch, lxiv.Google Scholar

68 Quarles, Francis, Emblems; To the Reader, bk ii, No 6, Epig 6.Google Scholar