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In the 17th and 18th centuries, political philosophers developed many theories of natural rights. John Locke put forward a theory of natural law and natural rights in the late 17th century. Thomas Jefferson referred to unalienable rights in the American Declaration of Independence. In 1791, in the midst of the French Revolution, the French Constituent Assembly issued a Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The utilitarian philosopher and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was a harsh critic of natural rights. He poured scorn on the French declaration, working his way through the text section by section, commenting on each. His treatment is the classic criticism of natural rights theory.
The end in view of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, prosperity, security, and resistance to oppression.

Sentence 1. The end in view of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.

More confusion -- more nonsense and the nonsense, as usual, dangerous nonsense. The words can scarcely be said to have a meaning: but if they have, or rather if they had a meaning, these would be the propositions either asserted or implied:

1. That there are such things as rights anterior to the establishment of governments: for natural, as applied to rights, if it meant anything, is meant to stand in opposition to legal; to such rights as are acknowledged to owe their existence to government, and are consequently posterior in their date to the establishment of government....

Such are the notions implied in this first part of the article. How stands the truth of things? That there are no such things as natural rights, no such things as rights anterior to the establishment of government, no such things as natural rights opposed to, in contradistinction to, legal; that the expression is merely figurative; that when used, in the moment you attempt to give it a literal meaning it leads to error, and to that sort of error that leads to mischief, to the extremity of mischief.

We know what it is for men to live without government and, living without government, to live without rights; we know what it is for men to live without government, for we see instances of such a way of life in abundance....In this state, at a time earlier than the commencement of history -- in this same state, judging from analogy, we, the inhabitants of the part of the globe we call Europe, were; no government, consequently no rights: no rights, consequently no property; no legal security, no legal liberty: security not more than belongs to beasts -- forecast and sense of insecurity keener -- consequently in point of happiness below the level of the brutal race.

In proportion to the want of happiness resulting from the want of rights, a reason [exists] for wishing that there were such things as rights. But reasons for wishing that there were such things as  rights, are not rights; a reason for wishing that a certain right were established, is not that right; want is not supply; hunger is not bread....

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, nonsense upon stilts.

[Jeremy Bentham, "A Critical Examination of the Declaration of Rights," in Bentham's Political Thought, ed. by Bhikhu Parekh, p. 267-269. Brackets added by Parekh.]