Human rights have both obligatory and actual attributes, and also include contents in two aspects – obligatory human rights ideal and actual human rights situation. However, both obligatory human rights ideal and actual human rights situation have intrinsic relationships with development; development is the drive of human rights advancement. Such relations are mainly reflected by economic development, cognitive development, legal development and human development in respect of promoting human rights advancement.

1. Economic development and human rights advancement

The term "economy" has multiple meanings; different scholars or works may have different definitions of it. No matter how to understand economy, however, we can consider economic development as the drive of human rights advancement.

Perhaps "economy" refers, first of all, to the development status of social productivity. Social productivity is always the most vigorous and the most active factor in social development, and is also the ultimate determinant in social development. The development of productivity provides a material possibility for the development of human rights. The right to life, the right to survival, the right of freedom, the right of equality and the right to development, among others, are all closely linked to economic development. The realization of the right to life must take the maintaining of human life as the most fundamental requirement. Human life is always assured with certain subsistence materials; without material conditions that can meet the human needs for the basic necessities of life, it will be difficult to maintain human life. Neither security nor improvement of the basic necessities of life can be divorced from the development of social productivity. Human subsistence, quality (good or bad) and condition of life are all closely related to the productivity conditions of a specific society. Freedoms of individuals or the humankind are not an illusion. Certain productivity development is the most substantial and indispensable foundation of the building of human freedoms. Human equality requires likewise necessary material assurance. Particularly, for physical assistance and relief provided to disadvantaged groups and individuals in modern societies, if there were no certain productivity and economical development as support, it would be difficult and even impossible for a country, a society or an individual to protect relevant human rights. The human right to development certainly includes the right to development, economically and in terms of productivity.

"Economy" is also frequently used to refer to the social economic base, i.e., total social relations of production. The condition of the social economic base (certain social relations of production) determines the condition of human rights too. In economic conditions, interpersonal relationships, as well as different legal regulations of these economic relations, also influence the basic condition of human rights directly. Under natural economy and market economy people have different economic relations, and in agricultural and industrial societies people have different economic relations. These form the economic base of a particular society. Overall, we can say affirmatively that human rights in the industrial society with market economy evolved from those in the agricultural society with natural economy and rose to a new level. And the requirements and conditions of human rights protection in the market economic and industrial society changed substantially, different form those in the history. Thus how to improve the level of human rights protection is just a topic of modern society.

The advancement of human society is always associated with the development of human cognition, and it is even justifiable to say that any advancement made by human beings originates from the development of human cognition. Hence human rights advancement is no exception. Without cognitive development, it is impossible for the humankind to push human rights ahead. Human cognitive development therefore is the forerunner of human rights advancement.

2. Cognitive development and human rights advancement

The advancement of human society is always associated with the development of human cognition, and it is even justifiable to say that any advancement made by human beings originates from the development of human cognition. Hence human rights advancement is no exception. Without cognitive development, it is impossible for the humankind to push human rights ahead. Human cognitive development therefore is the forerunner of human rights advancement.

Firstly, the burgeoning of human rights consciousness and the development in human rights theories were results of human cognitive development. Early in the rude times humankind had no notion of human rights, not to mention conscious human rights protection. With increase in human cognition, in particular with cognitive deepening of humankind in itself and related factors, a cognitive foundation was gradually laid for the formation of human rights consciousness. As human self-cognition developed, humankind founded gradually that both individuals and groups should enjoy rights as human beings. Perhaps such right consciousness initially relied more on human instinct and emerged in a spontaneous way. With cognitive deepening, however, purely instinctive, spontaneous human rights consciousness evolved gradually into conscious rational cognition; even some ideological concepts were gradually formed and essential theories then established. The improvement of human rights from instinctive consciousness to rational cognition was an important result of cognitive development of humankind. Along with the development of human society and human cognition, the human rights cognition changed gradually from the initial human rights consciousness to relatively profound human rights theories. And after that, the initial spontaneous protection of human rights evolved gradually into the sound conscious protection, and human rights were even protected by people with moral, religious, legal and many other means.

Secondly, rich human rights contents are a result of cognitive development of humankind. In obligatory sense, the contents of human rights are perhaps certain, because obligatory human rights in the sense of human cognition are still uncertain and will develop with the change and deepening of human cognition. In actual sense, however, the contents of human rights are even more uncertain. The actual history of human rights development reveals once and again that the contents of human rights that people advocate and protect develop on a continual basis. In fact, in any ages, the contents of human rights that people advocate and protect must, and can only be contents being cognized by humankind. The cognition of human rights is a process of continuously enriching, replenishing and improving with social development. Early in human history, obligatory human rights certainly existed too, but the initial stage of human cognition determined the limited human cognition of the contents of human rights. Only in the process of human cognitive and social development were the contents of human rights updated continuously and enriched day by day. So far human rights have already formed a large system of rights in terms of contents being covered. The rich and varied contents of human rights make people cognize time after time and see them in a better light. Intergenerational updating and extension also occurred to the contents of human rights.

Thirdly, the condition of human rights protection is subject to the level of cognitive development of humankind in human rights. In the primitive society and in the ages of slavery system, the initial state of human cognition of human rights also made the actual protection of human rights in an extremely initial state, because at that time humankind knew nothing about rights individuals or collectives should have and of course were unable to protect those rights not yet cognized. The condition of human rights protection was severely limited by human rights cognition in those ages. If cognition of people were abnormal, abnormality of human rights protection would be resulted in inevitably. In history and practice, gender inequality, ethnical inequality, regional inequality and inconsistence of the times are all concerned with human cognition of human rights in specific times and environments. Humankind cannot protect human rights by overstepping its cognition. In today's world, the development of human rights is unprecedented. Leaving aside its essence, at least superficially human rights have almost become the slogan of any and all true or false human rights defenders, and almost no country or society dares to deny human rights overtly. This cannot be divorced from the shared values of humankind. The common human cognition of values and the shared human rights values of humankind themselves are part of human cognition, and are results of human cognitive development.