An Ancient Interpretation of the Right to Happiness in Contemporary International Law

نوع مقاله : مقالات انگلیسی

نویسنده

Academic Teacher, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), NSW, Australia

10.22099/jls.2025.53251.5330

چکیده

This article reassesses the ‘right to happiness’ by reading Achaemenid royal inscriptions alongside contemporary international instruments (UNGA resolutions and the 2030 Agenda). It advances two claims. First, a semantic and philological reading of Old Persian (notably the lexeme šiyāti-/šiyāta-) and close readings of Darius the Great and Xerxes’ inscriptions show that Achaemenid kings framed collective welfare – peace, subsistence and moral order – as a governmental obligation grounded in divine legitimacy. Second, when mapped onto modern frameworks, this tripartite ancient schema (security against violence, protection from famine and material want, and the suppression of institutional falsehood/corruption) anticipates key duties now articulated across human-rights instruments and the Sustainable Development Goals. Where Achaemenid inscriptions explicitly invoke ‘happiness’, contemporary international law increasingly seeks to preserve analogous aims under the rubric of ‘well-being’, translating ancient normative commitments into modern duties enforceable through rights and SDG frameworks. 
Methodologically the study combines lexical reconstruction, textual exegesis of primary inscriptions (DNa, DNb, DPe/DPd, XPh) and doctrinal comparison with UN resolutions and SDG indicators to identify continuities and measurement gaps. The article argues that Achaemenid šiyāti functions as a proto-right that clarifies why governance, justice and resilience must be central to any legalized conception of wellbeing; it also proposes targeted sub-indicators (disaster resilience, rule-of-law metrics, transparency measures) to better align SDG monitoring with the normative content of the right to happiness. The intervention contributes to the history of human-rights ideas and to debates about operationalizing wellbeing in international law.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

An Ancient Interpretation of the Right to Happiness in Contemporary International Law

نویسنده [English]

  • Anosh Naderi
Academic Teacher, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), NSW, Australia
چکیده [English]

This article reassesses the ‘right to happiness’ by reading Achaemenid royal inscriptions alongside contemporary international instruments (UNGA resolutions and the 2030 Agenda). It advances two claims. First, a semantic and philological reading of Old Persian (notably the lexeme šiyāti-/šiyāta-) and close readings of Darius the Great and Xerxes’ inscriptions show that Achaemenid kings framed collective welfare – peace, subsistence and moral order – as a governmental obligation grounded in divine legitimacy. Second, when mapped onto modern frameworks, this tripartite ancient schema (security against violence, protection from famine and material want, and the suppression of institutional falsehood/corruption) anticipates key duties now articulated across human-rights instruments and the Sustainable Development Goals. Where Achaemenid inscriptions explicitly invoke ‘happiness’, contemporary international law increasingly seeks to preserve analogous aims under the rubric of ‘well-being’, translating ancient normative commitments into modern duties enforceable through rights and SDG frameworks. 
Methodologically the study combines lexical reconstruction, textual exegesis of primary inscriptions (DNa, DNb, DPe/DPd, XPh) and doctrinal comparison with UN resolutions and SDG indicators to identify continuities and measurement gaps. The article argues that Achaemenid šiyāti functions as a proto-right that clarifies why governance, justice and resilience must be central to any legalized conception of wellbeing; it also proposes targeted sub-indicators (disaster resilience, rule-of-law metrics, transparency measures) to better align SDG monitoring with the normative content of the right to happiness. The intervention contributes to the history of human-rights ideas and to debates about operationalizing wellbeing in international law.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • Right to Happiness
  • Human Rights
  • International Law
  • Sustainable Goals
  • Ancient Persia

مراجع

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