In this chapter, the historical evolution of the idea of human rights is considered in three sections: Hobbesian contracts; religion (contracts with God); and industrial contexts (workers’ rights as contracts with capital). This is followed by an overview of key contributions to human rights theory by twentieth-century political philosophers and sociologists, namely, John Rawls (distributive justice), Bryan Turner (vulnerability theory), Jűrgen Habermas (deliberative rights) and Michel Foucault (relationships between power, freedom and rights).