ABSTRACT
Nelson Mandela's release from prison has become a symbol of liberation from the shackles of a totalitarian regime, the triumph of democracy over apartheid and of hope for the future of human rights in the person of a prisoner who became a president. Rendered all the more inspirational coming from the lips of Nelson Mandela, it is one of many variations on a theme of individual and state that has accompanied the rise of humanitarianism, and latterly of the human rights cause, since the 19th century. The treatment of prisoners, those who count among the lowest and the most unpopular, has become a yardstick for judging the progress of civilization. The language of human rights is typically moral, philosophical and rhetorical, having its roots in the Enlightenment and its early expressions in the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
