The origin of the right to the pursuit of happiness through constitutions

Abstract

Nowadays we live in a world marked by great geographical and scientific discoveries and, due to the increasingly accelerated rhythms of our time, happiness has no longer been considered just an abstract concept but it has become a right. The right to the pursuit of happiness has, behind it, a complex of individual rights and is affirmed on the premise of their recognition within the different constitutions. The meaning that the concept of happiness has received in different historical and cultural contexts is an essential part of its history. The first statement of happiness as a right is contained in the Declaration of Rights, Art.1, proclaimed in the State of Virginia in June 1776. Throughout my dissertation, I am going to seek the origin of the right to the pursuit of happiness going back to definitions such as the one of constitution and constitutionalism and the influences of Locke and Hobbes on such matters. I will then focus on European and American constitutionalism and the influence that Emer de Vattel had on constitutions, international law and in particular on the concept of the pursuit of happiness. I will deal with the presence as well as the absence of this important right in the European tradition, talking about the development of the right to the pursuit of happiness within the French Revolution and the absence of it in the European Convention on Human Rights and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. At the end of my work, I will tackle the American tradition regarding the right to the pursuit of happiness dealing with the American Declaration of Independence and I will conclude with the more recent American contribution to the public debate in the field of the right to the pursuit of happiness.