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EQUAL RIGHTS BETWEEN SEXES Maritain,’ in order to answer this, we first have to separate the ontological and gnoseological study of natural law. Following this line of thought we can claim that human rights, the right to life, ie. natural rights, have always existed, are of the same age as mankind, but unlike positive rights, it took effort to fully realize them. Social development, the development and cognition of man, an even deeper knowledge of ourselves may have been the factors that eventually led us to recognize the ever-existing fundamental principles of natural law, which have been transformed into laws stated expressis verbis in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.® However, there were aspirations to something similar much earlier in time. Classical equality was, for example, reflected in the ideas of the 17th-century philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet, who described the relationship between the “discovery” of human rights and the legislative power of majority decisionmaking in his work titled Esquisse. He also addressed the issue of women’s equality, which he considered a moral evidence.’ “One of the most important achievements of the human spirit, in terms of overall prosperity, is the complete destruction of prejudice that have created legal inequalities between the two sexes, with devastating consequences for the favoured party.” Despite its early appearance and the later — initially less successful — codification of women’s suffrage as a result of emancipation movements, the first significant document to ban discrimination on a large scale was not published until the 20th century. The United Nations General Assembly accepted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948, primarily to ensure that crimes against humanity committed during World War II — such as the Shoah — can never happen again. We need to note that the UN Charter - preceding this document — had made an expressis verbis declaration on human rights on several points, but it was only about equality in general, also stating the prohibition of racial, gender and religious discrimination." a Maritain, J.: A személy jogai. A politikai humanizmus, in Frivaldszky, J. (ed.): Természetjog. Szöveggyűjtemény, Budapest, Szent István Társulat, 2006, 90—92; see also Maritain, guoted by Turgonyi, Z.: A természetjog rehabilitálása felé — Gondolatok Frivaldszky János új könyvének kapcsán, Jogelméleti szemle, 2012/1, 173. About this issue see my article: Takács, I.: Az emberi jogok lehetnek-e univerzálisak? A kulturális relativizmus és az univerzalizmus konfliktusa az emberi jogok filozófiai és gyakorlati megközelítéseiben [Can human rights be universal? Cultural Relativism versus Universalism, philosophical and practical approaches in the context of Human Rights], Jogelméleti Szemle, 2021/3, 84-108. Ludassy, M.: A jövő nemzedékek iránti felelősség Condorcet koncepciója, Magyar Filozófiai Szemle, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2012, 9—14. 1° Condorcet, quoted by Ludassy: A jövö nemzedekek, 9-14. 1 Cf. Kovacs, P.: Nemzetközi jog, Budapest, Osiris, 2016, 369-377. 00 o + 19 +
