Legal Rights
Classical Chinese does not have a semantic equivalent to the concept of "rights". The idea of rights was introduced to China from the West. Its translation as quanli (权利) was coined by William Alexander Parsons Martin in 1864, in his translation of Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law.
Read more about this topic: Chinese Law
Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or rights:
“Lawyers are necessary in a community. Some of you ... take a different view; but as I am a member of that legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it to become a politician, I still retain the pride of the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the lawyer that make popular government under a written constitution and written statutes possible.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)