The positivist view of English common law holds that human rights were basically the residue of liberty left over by enacted law and then concerned with civil and political rights. This view was reflected in the Magna Carta of 1215, the Bill of Rights of 1689 (GB) and the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. It was the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 that became the first influential document to refer to considerations of social, economic, and cultural rights, specifically the rights to education, work, property ownership, and social protection.
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