Modernly, doctrine speaks of 4 generations of rights, all of them arising from a particular moment of history:
First generation - Individual Rights:
These are derived from the enlightening, and were aimed at defeating the absolute power of Kings over the lifes of citzens. They encompass rights such as these of
life, health, freedom of movement, though and religion as well as
property.
The first generation also spawned in europe, and in much of the europe-influenced world of the time, the doctrine of "great codifications", particularly used in France and, to a lesser extend, in Germany, that advocated the creation of great "codes of law", that aimed at regulating every single situation of conflict that could possibly arise - what it, evidently, failed to accomplish.
From that stage comes documents regarded as of major importance in the development of western society, such as the "Napoleonic Code", which brought Civil Law to a new level, and the world-famous "Universal Declaration of Human Rights".
Despite it's tremendous importance, the rights of first generation have met meritorious critique. It was so centered in property that Civil Law is still today nicknamed "rich law" in some circles, as most of the destituted population got no measurable benefit from it's institutions.
Second Generation - Social Rights:
The first attempt to solve the gaps within the first generation of rigts was very sucessful in several of it's tasks. The rights now not only spoke of the prerrogatives of man before his property (against other man), but now it also incompassed a whole other deal of worries, making it the generation of rights of man
before the social body.
The rights of the second generation, than, encompass
right of employment, right of dignifying condition, right of education, right of retirement, right of security, and, in general, states as a principle that the adverse conditions for social development must be addressed by the powers that be in order to guarantee to everyone their fair shot at sucess.
This is a child of the social worries that came from the early
laissez-faire industrial revolution, and of opposion brought by the ideals of communism. It's also the school of thought behind welfare and social-democracy.
Third Generation - collective rights:
As human experience furthered, a new gap in the recognized human rights were observed by the legal philosophy. It was observed that all the rights known at the time were completely focused on individuals, be it against man, be it against society. Society, however, also needed protection, and sometimes it was not easy to point a person to be the one individual particularly interested in defending it.
Who, for example, has the right to
a clean environment? Who has the right to
stop a predatory business practice? Who is individually interested in stopping the destruction of the rain forrest?
To deal with such, the doctrine enunciated
collective; diffuse and
trans-individual rights, which encompass human beings (individually identifiable or not) as the interested parties in the defense of rights that affect collectivity as a whole. Hence, though nobody have personally a say to stop, for instance, an industry to pollute the environment, the collective interest can act in such direction.
Fourth generation (controversial):
Fresh from the elven, there is a fourth generation, which can be, so far, considered to deal with *residual* rights not covered by the previous three. The classic example is bioethics. Where is the interest in preventing abominous experiments with human cells? They don't affect an particular individual or the community directly, so they don't fit any of the three generations enunciated before. They, however, do mess with patrimony that is intrinsic to the world and to our conditions as human beings, hence the necessity for regulation.
This very new and highly controversial doctrine, however, still need to be consolidated, and it may very well end up absorbed by the previous generation. Time will tell.
Regards
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