Era

Is the identification of this right associated with a particular era in history, political regime, or political leader?

Right	Breakout	Contents
Freedom of Association		This right became an element of political discourse in the late Enlightenment, especially in the mid and late 1800s , as seen in the works of authors such as John Stuart Mill and Leo XIII. References: Catholic Church. Pope (1878-1903 : Leo XIII). Rerum Novarum : Enciclica Di Leone XIII Sulla Questione Operaia. Lugano :Edizione a cura dell'Organizzazione cristano-sociale del canton Ticino per la celebrazione del LXX, 1961. Mill, J. S. (1975) Three essays : On liberty, Representative government, The subjection of women. London: Oxford University Press.
Freedom of Expression		Freedom of expression is a relatively new term, however, not a new concept. For much of its history, the individual freedoms covered under freedom of expression were established in isolated contexts throughout time and eventually translated into this overarching concept of freedom of expression. The identification of this freedom is a product of many contributions over several centuries, resulting in associations to multiple eras and contributors: yet remaining limited to being a fundamental element of democratic regimes. The composition of freedom of expression possesses two elements associated with the present-day interpretation. The first element is the origins of the foundational freedoms covered under the overall “Freedom of expression.” The second element is the transition from individual freedoms to the broader notion of expression. Today, it is universally understood that freedom of expression includes freedom of speech and freedom of the press. While freedom of speech has origins in ancient Greece through the concept of Parrhêsia, (Konstan, 2012, 1), freedom of the press and expression have a significant concrete appearance through the works of John Milton in Areopagitica(1644). In the book Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens, Arlene Saxonhouse discusses how Milton “Protests the licensing of books and the governmental restraints thereby placed on free expression in published works… Milton argues in a series of allusions to the world of ancient Athens, tying Milton to the values expressed by the ancient Athenian, connecting freedom of speech to human virtue and political freedom’’ (Saxonhouse 2005, 20). The next significant development to freedom of expression was the ratification of the Bill of Rights into the U.S. Constitution; a document that drew inspiration from the English Magna Carta (1215). Although the Magna Carta did not explicitly mention free speech, it did guarantee certain liberties that would be conceptualized into modern democracy and go on to inspire the Bill of Rights, i.e The First Amendment (WEX Definitions Team, 2020). Thus, The First Amendment became an important development in what would come to be called freedom of expression. However, it wouldn't be until 1948 that “freedom of expression” was officially coined and universally recognized. Following World War II, freedom of information was declared a fundamental human right but the language of “freedom of expression” was not agreed upon until it was drafted and entered into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by an American committee (Kleinwächter, 2022). Between The First Amendment and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, innovations such as the telegraph and radio broadcasting proposed new obstacles to information sharing beyond borders. This led to multiple treaties and conventions discussing the censoring of content shared internationally, thus challenging freedom of speech and press, however, no explicit mention of freedom of expression was mentioned in these international treaties(Kleinwächter, 2022). Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information through any media regardless of frontiers.” It was here that the individual freedoms within the First Amendment translated into the united concept of “freedom of expression” and then became internationally recognized into law through the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1966 with the same language used in Article 19 (Kleinwächter, 2022). With a long evolution and multiple developments contributing to the concept today, the identification of this freedom is not limited to a single era, but rather significant to several. .. The associations of these eras parallel the significance of the identification of this freedom in relation to a specific type of regime. These dates, as well as the overall notion of this freedom, are important to the development and expansion of democracy and democratic institutions. This element of democracy facilitates open debate, proper consideration of different perspectives, and the negotiation and compromise necessary for consensual policy decisions (Freedom House, 2023). Without this freedom, true democracy would not exist as “the suppression of ideas is inconsistent with the concept that a democratic society bases its decisions on full and open discussion of all points of view (Bogen, 1983, 464).” Expressing content or discontent for a government, policy, or principle, as well as proposing solutions or critiques, amongst expressions of other topics, allows for the democratic process to function for its intended purpose and is profoundly within the right of an individual to do so as a protected human right. Unlike the association to a single regime type, this freedom is not limited to a single political leader. Instead, multiple figures, often not in positions of leadership, opposed the censoring of opinions and ideas, and acted as the main contributors to the expansion of freedom of expression. Those who drafted the Magna Carta opposed the monarchy of King John; Milton opposed government censorship, and the Framers of the Constitution opposed absolute power by a single ruler. All of these developments over time resulted in the association to several contributors who led us to the contemporary understanding of this freedom. This long evolutionary process with collaborative efforts from key points and figures throughout history has resulted in the identification of this right being tied to multiple eras and figures, yet to only one regime type. References: Konstan, David. 2012. “The Two Faces of Parrhêsia: Free Speech and Self-Expression in Ancient Greece.” Antichthon 46. Cambridge University Press: 1–13. doi:10.1017/S0066477400000125. Saxonhouse, Arlene W. 2005. Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens. Cambridge University Press. 11-37 WEX Definitions Team. 2020 “Magna Carta.” LII / Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/magna_carta#:~:text=The%20writers%20of%20the%20Bill. Bogen, David S. 1983. “The Origins of Freedom of Speech and Press” 42. Maryland Law Review. 429-465. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2503&context=mlr Freedom House. “Freedom of Expression.” 2023. https://freedomhouse.org/issues/freedom-expression Kleinwächter, Wolfgang. 2022. “A History of the Right to Freedom of Expression.” Observer Research Foundation. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/a-history-of-the-right-to-freedom-of-expression/
Freedom of Religion		Religious freedom, while commonplace in modern liberal democracies, was not always identified as a natural right with which people were born. Historical narratives describe the “Dark Ages” between the fall of the Roman Empire and the advent of early modernity as a period in which the world was divided between various civilizations according to the religions which they professed. The Reformation was one of the most influential movements in the course of western history. As leaders like Martin Luther, and John Calvin led Christian communities to break from traditional Catholicism, the rate of religious pluralism rose within Europe and led to a series of religious wars that defined the sixteenth century. In an early attempt to mediate these conflicts, German rulers negotiated the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. Alexandra Walsham writes that this document “established the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, by which individual rulers were permitted to choose whether Catholicism or Protestantism should be professed in their states” (Walsham, “Reformation Legacies,” 297.) Thus, in addition to legalizing the practice of multiple religions within the German states, the adoption of cuius regio, eius religio also meant that religion would no longer be forced upon a principality by outside forces. The idea that Christian rulers could have the right to choose their own religion, and that this choice would be respected, represents an early step toward the principles of religious pluralism and toleration. The Peace of Augsburg did not lend religious agency to the subjects living within these principalities, but it did show European leaders that cooperation was possible between rulers who belonged to differing faiths. The seventeenth century was an especially bloody one which included such conflicts as the English Civil War, the French Wars of Religion, and the vicious Thirty Years’ War. Religious plurality invariably led to violence in the seventeenth century, but these conflicts were often followed by important agreements that fostered some level of religious toleration. In 1598, following the religious battles between Catholics and Protestants in France, the French King Henry (IV) of Navarre signed the Edict of Nantes, which “gave Protestants permission to practice their faith openly, albeit within strict limits and as second-class citizens” (Walsham, “Reformation Legacies,” 299). The Thirty Years’ War famously concluded with the Peace of Westphalia, which decreed (among other things) that while each state should have the right to establish an official religion, they were also obligated to allow their subjects the opportunity to practice different Christian denominations without fear of persecution (Christenson, “Liberty of the Exercise of Religion in the Peace of Westphalia,” 740). By favoring religious toleration, Westphalia’s signatories recognized that only religious toleration would reduce the potential for future conflict between the various sects of Christianity. Documents like the Edict of Nantes and the Peace of Westphalia ultimately failed to end religious persecution and conflict within Europe, but they still reveal a heightened awareness of the need for leaders to tolerate religious plurality within their borders. As the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wore on, European intelligentsia began exploring the concept of religious freedom more directly. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Baruch Spinoza led the intellectual charge in support of freedom of conscience and thought, while political leaders such as Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson incorporated principles of religious freedom and the separation of church and state into their state building efforts in North America. While legal guarantees of the right to religious freedom would not be made until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the modern right to freedom of religion is rooted in Reformation-era efforts to mediate religious conflict and incorporate religious toleration into budding European nation-states. REFERENCES Gordon A. Christenson, “Liberty of the Exercise of Religion in the Peace of Westphalia,” Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems, Vol. 21, 2012). Alexandra Walsham, “Reformation Legacies,” from The Oxford History of the Reformation, ed. Peter Marshall, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2022
Freedom of the Press		Sociologically, the emergence of the freedom of the press as a concept in law dovetails roughly with the Enlightenment. There is an argument to be made that the foundation for the rights articulated during 18th century was established nearly one hundred years prior with natural law philosophers such as John Locke, and while that’s somewhat true, the vernacularization and expansion of rights dialogue during the Enlightenment cannot be neglected as having been foundational to the identification of the right to a free press. (Edelstein. “Enlightenment Rights Talk.”) As liberalism began to take shape in Europe and principles of innate human dignity and natural rights began to enter everyday western European discourse, so too did the principle of a free press come into law. The earliest documented law governing the free press was enacted in Sweden in 1766 with the Swedish Freedom of Print Act. This law, at least in essence enshrined the freedom of the press on all topics with four specific exceptions. These exceptions were: “challenges to the Evangelical faith; attacks on the constitution, the royal family or foreign powers; defamatory remarks about civil servants or fellow citizens; and indecent or obscene literature.” (Nordin, “Swedish Freedom to Print Act”) All other topics were more or less protected under this provision of the law. By modern standards this seems to be an incredibly tepid, and seemingly limited conception of freedom of the press —especially given that the Swedish free press law largely protected powerful institutions like the church and monarchy — but nevertheless it was a radically progressive take on the freedom of the press for its time. It was not until decades later that the American conception of the right to a free press would come to exist in various states before being ratified as a part of the United States’ Constitutional Bill of Rights in 1791. However, during the French Revolution and the intellectual culture that accompanied it, the articulation of the right to a free press was made in The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. In the document, drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette with feedback from Thomas Jefferson, the right is articulated as follows, “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.” ("Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen") The interaction between Jefferson and the Marquis is not insignificant as it likely shaped the development of the conception of the right to a free press as it came to exist in the American context as well. During the preceding century (the seventeenth century) when the printing press first made its way to urban centers such as Boston and Philadelphia in the American colonies, there were several notable cases of journalists being tried for sedition and libel by English colonial magistrates. After the American revolution, states began to adopt their own constitutions, and supplement the federal constitution, which at the time lacked a bill of rights. One early articulation of the protection of the freedom of the press in the American context was in Pennsylvania’s state constitution. “The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790 provided that ‘every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that Liberty. In prosecutions for the publications of papers…the truth may be given in evidence.’ Delaware and Kentucky followed suit with their constitutions in 1792.” This was the early makings of the truth as a defense in cases of libel. (Kahane, 1976) The articulation of the right to a free press in the Pennsylvania state constitution is strikingly similar to that in The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the citizen. These commonalities, if they are more than mere coincidences, point to the overarching influence of the Enlightenment on the formulation of the right to a free press, as well as the connections between the intellectual circles in France and the United States that shaped the recognition of the right to a free press. References: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp Edelstein, Dan. “Enlightenment Rights Talk.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 86, no. 3, 2014, pp. 530–565. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/676691. Accessed 15 July 2021 Kahane, Dennis S. “Colonial Origins of Our Free Press.” American Bar Association Journal, vol. 62, no. 2, 1976, pp. 202–206. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25727515. Accessed 9 July 2021.) Nordin, “The Swedish Freedom of Print Act of 1776 – Background and Significance” https://www.swlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2018-04/Nordin%20Pages%20from%207.2%20FULL%20v7%20%284_13_18%29_.pdf)