Human Rights in the Age of Discovery

In Rene Trujillo's book "Human Rights in the 'Age of Discovery,'" the introduction explains the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration was adopted in 1948 by the United Nations and was ratified by 48 nations. Eleanor Roosevelt was the chair of the commission that wrote it and represented the United States in the United Nations. Most national constitutions incorporate some of the Declaration's principles and human rights organizations think of the Declaration as a kind of constitution, stating rights and freedoms.

When Trujillo tells us about Francisco de Vitoria's opposition to the way that the Spaniards were treating the Western Hemisphere's native people when they discovered the "new" world. Vitoria came up with an alternative to the theology and philosophy of repression that was widely known in his time (right around the 1500's). The thesis of his alternative had 3 principles: all human beings have a fundamental right to be treated as free people, to defend their own status of independence, and to enjoy the right to work toward and to make peace and international unity. These principles instigated a dispute between Juan Gines de Sepulveda, the official defender of the monarch, and Vitoria based on the concept of a just war, or, in general, the concept of "justice" altogether when it comes to human rights.

Vitoria's perspective can be understood on 5 basic points: the Spaniards and the native people had to be seen as equal, in terms of their humanity; any assertion of inhumanity in the native people had to be seen as a result of a lack of education and their uncivilized customs; the native people, same as the Spanish, had property rights to their possessions and could not be deprived of those possessions be...

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...y... (which) is achieved not only through our duties and obligations to others, but also through the obligations and duties of others to ourselves." (pg. 200, Kessler)

Trujillo believes that, in general, in today's society, when rights are talked about, it's too often about us, and not often enough about other people. He says that if we want to establish one person's "duties," we have to make the basis of that duty rooted in the enjoyment in some right; if this doesn't happen, then we're asking all privilege-deprived people to behave systematically and freely against their own interests. Trujillo believes that, until we recognize that humanity reveals itself in many different ways, we are in no position to judge anyone, not even ourselves. Nor can we ask individuals to fully participate in a community where they are not deemed worthy of their full human rights.