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The question of which (if any) rights are natural and which are merely legal is an important one in philosophy and politics. Critics of the concept of natural rights argue that the only rights that exist are legal rights, while proponents of the concept of natural rights say that documents such as the United States Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights demonstrate the usefulness of recognizing natural rights. The theory of natural law, a law whose content is set in a state of nature and is therefore valid everywhere, is related to the theory of natural rights. During the Enlightenment, natural law theory opposed the divine right of kings theory, and became the basis of classical republicanism and an explanation for the hypothetical reasons for establishing positive law and government, and thus legal rights. Blurring the lines between natural and legal rights, U.S. statesman James Madison believed that some rights, such as trial by jury, are social rights, arising neither from natural law nor from positive law but from the social contract from which a government derives its authority.[1]
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