The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens

Georg Jellinek argues in his essay The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen for a universal theory of rights, as opposed to the culturally and nationally specific arguments then in vogue. Jellinek indicates that the French Revolution, which was the focal point of 19th-century political theory, should not be thought of as arising from a purely French tradition (namely the tradition stemming from Jean-Jacques Rousseau) but as a close analogue of revolutionary movements and ideas in England and the United States.

Georg Jellinek (1851 –1911) was a German public lawyer and was considered to be "the exponent of public law in Austria". He studied not only law, history of art and philosophy at the University of Vienna but also philosophy, history and law in Heidelberg and Leipzig. He is best known for his work The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1895).