Who has been the most influencial leader/king for human rights?

Great Debates
1

My immediate first thought is the first king of persia cyrus. Which was the first person in position of power to promote human rights on a large scale. Mainly being the freedom of belief, and the natural rights of man.

Is there any others or ones before cyrus that promoted wide spread human rights across the board? I’m sure there is many from the past few centuries, but more specifically I want to know about a few millenniums ago. There must be other leaders who were similar to cyrus.

2

Modesty forbids…

3

Do you want to say the magna carta?

I was expecting the first reply to be about that.

4

Hammurabi, one of the first law-makers whose laws survive, might qualify. But what do you mean by ‘the natural rights of man’? Because I really don’t think there are any. We may agree to grant each other rights, but those only hold as long as ‘rough men stand ready’ to defend them.