<P> While belief in the sanctity of human life has ancient precedents in many religions of the world, the idea of modern human rights began during the era of renaissance humanism in the early modern period . The European wars of religion and the civil wars of seventeenth - century England gave rise to the philosophy of liberalism and belief in human rights became a central concern of European intellectual culture during the eighteenth - century Age of Enlightenment . These ideas of human rights lay at the core of the American and French Revolutions which occurred toward the end of that century . Democratic evolution through the nineteenth century paved the way for the advent of universal suffrage in the twentieth century . Two world wars led to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . </P> <P> The post-war era saw human rights movements for special interest groups such as feminism and the civil rights of African - Americans . The human rights of members of the Soviet bloc emerged in the 1970s along with workers' rights in the West . The movement quickly jelled as social activism and political rhetoric in many nations put it high on the world agenda . By the 21st century, Moyn has argued, the human rights movement expanded beyond its original anti-totalitarianism to include numerous causes involving humanitarianism and social and economic development in the Developing World . </P>

Where did the idea of human rights come from