How the Right to Privacy Became a Human Right

The right to privacy became an international human right before it was a nationally well-established fundamental right. When it was created in the years after World War II, state constitutions protected only aspects of privacy such as the inviolability of the home and of correspondence. This article analyses how the integral guarantee—the right to privacy or to respect of one’s private life—came into existence. It traces the drafting history on the global and the European level and argues that there was no conscious decision to create an integral guarantee. The right’s potential was dramatically underestimated at the time of its creation.