Natural rights are self-evident and thus not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government. As such, they are held by every individual.
Most scholars consider inalienable rights to be the same as natural rights. Inalienable rights are fundamental rights inherent to every human being, which no one can give away and cannot be taken away by any government. (Note: The Declaration of Independence spells the word inalienable as “unalienable.”)
Why this matters: The political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence is rooted in the concept of inalienable rights. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence starts with these famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“
In practice, all rights asserted to be inalienable can be and often have been taken away or denied. This fact is why several state delegations refused to ratify the Constitution until amendments were promised to protect key rights from infringement by the national government. After ratification of the Constitution in 1788 and the installation of the new government in 1789, twelve amendments were proposed by Congress, of which ten (2-12) were ratified by the states in 1791. These ten are known as The Bill of Rights.
See also: “Rights,” “civil liberties,” “civil rights,” and “negative and positive rights.”
Sources:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights
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