| In contemporary China, the word "rights" is undoubtedly one of the most stirring words, and the emergence of right discourse is one of the most noteworthy phenomena. As a result, the issues of right also have become the most enthusiastic academic topics of Chinese legal circles. We know that it is extremely difficult to give an universally applicable definition to "rights", and it seems that there is no "truth" of "rights", but only a variety of interpretations about "rights". However,"rights" is often the "cornerstone" of theoretical building and starting point for analysis, not only because the researchers' different ideas about "rights" indicate their position and methods are different, but also because ideas of "rights" affect the researchers in a potential way, and also is the deepest hypothesis of their theoretical system. As the contemporary Chinese legal circles is the "main force" of the academic study about "rights", and the researchers' ideas about "rights" are the "condensation" and "representative" of ideas of the whole society about right, it is enough to study contemporary Chinese history of ideas about "rights" only according to Chinese legal circles.As a "unit idea", the word "rights" is undoubtedly the most worthy concerning and studying. When we look at contemporary Chinese legal circles for the last short period of30years, we find that rights-based theory, theory of the consistency between rights and obligations, obligations-based theory, theory of legal rights, sociological theory of rights, and political theory of rights "appear" one after another and bring forth a "colorful" picture of rights' research. Carefully studying a variety of the ideas of rights, we believe that mainly include the following.As a legal technology or tool, rights are the idea of analytical jurisprudence, whose main characteristics are to place rights and obligations below the law, mainly as the legal relationship's elements, and to regard rights and obligations as a pair of "relationship" categories. By chronological order, the ideas in contemporary China have complex historical origins which include analytical jurisprudence's ideas of rights during Republic of China, nationalism's ideas of rights before the reform and opening-up, and modern western analytical jurisprudence's ideas of rights at present. Now the ideas that regard rights as a legal technology or tool has five forms, namely, formalism, technologism, nationalism, instrumentalism and proceduralism. We can research the relationship between rights and obligations from multiple "perspectives", mainly including the views of "legal relationship","basic categories","cornerstone category","legal force","obligations-based theory", as well as "inter-disciplinary perspective (mainly ethics)". Among them, there are four views including "legal relationship","basic categories","cornerstone category","legal force" and "obligations-based theory" which are concrete manifestations of the paradigm of analytical jurisprudence, and whose goal is to construct a more rational jurisprudence system and methods. So they agree to the ideas of legal rights which belong to the paradigm of analytical jurisprudence. In addition, most scholars regard the consistency between rights and obligations as an important content of Marxism jurisprudence as well as important distinguishing features of Socialism practices. The ideas of the "consistency" to a certain extent have become a typical representative and a concentrated expression of the socialistic ideology and have been condensed into "new tradition" of the contemporary Chinese legal system and human rights practice.The ideas about rights of value theory consider right as value or justice. Recourse to human subjectivity, equality and freedom, it breaks away from the perspective of legal rights, namely the ideas of legal rights of analytical jurisprudence, and explains the legitimacy of right, as well as gives right the significance of value. Right-based theory embodies the ideas about right of value theory because it thinks that right is the cornerstone category of jurisprudence, and right is the aim while obligations is the means. However, as the value of law or justice, right can't be interpreted in a logical and technical relationship between rights and obligations and can be only illustrated in the value significance between right and powers, or state and individual. It should be noted that legal force theory claims that the contradiction between rights and powers is the basic contradiction of jurisprudence and advocate that the unity of rights and powers replace the pattern of relationships between rights and obligations in order to "update" jurisprudence, and some legal scholars have done positive "response". Therefore, to understand the ideas of right under the value theory, we must grasp the relations between right and powers in the sense of value which means that right is the aim while powers is the means, and the aim is always higher than the means.The ideas about rights of legal sociology consider rights as social facts. Some scholars in contemporary Chinese legal circles began to look at the rule of law and rights issues from a sociological perspective, and open up an approach of sociological theory on the rights research. From a sociological perspective, right is a social fact and an objective phenomenon. Through social surveys and statistical analysis, we are able to obtain some ideas, system, and mechanisms of knowledge "about" rights, as well as some knowledge about the development of rights. The knowledge is considered to be objective because they are obtained by excluding an approach of subjective value. From the view of the sociological theory of rights, the ideas about rights consist mostly of:the ideas of social fact, the ideas of development of rights, the idea of the interaction between rights'development and social development, as well as the ideas of "the times of rights". If some legal sociology researches by the sociological theory of rights is to hope legislators through their rationality to improve legislation to strengthen the protection and realization of rights, then, the researches by sociology of justice through case studies is to resort to judges'rationality through the justice of case to strengthen the protection and realization of rights. The latter constitutes an important trend or face in the contemporary Chinese legal circles. In addition, The Western ideas about rights were once regarded as universal but now the creative transformation is taking place under the active efforts of the contemporary Chinese legal scholars because of sociological theory and methods. The ideas of civil rights and harmonious human rights are the main expressions.The ideas about rights of constitutional paradigm consider rights as the knot of the realization of rights. Fundamental rights "carry on" right under the paradigm of value theory, and "link" rights under the paradigm of analytical jurisprudence, also "rooted" in rights under the level of social facts. These are considered as the ideas of fundamental rights as communication tool under Constitutionalism. Since the new millennium, the Chinese legal circles, in particular, the constitutional scholars actively have studied the fundamental rights around the problem of constitutional jurisdiction, and open up a constitutional approach ot rights' research, and have formed of a series of ideas about fundamental rights. From the "metaphysical" value or justice to "physical" technology or tools, fundamental rights are subject to the "objectivity" of rights' facts and play a bridge role. On the one hand, deserved right or moral right in the sense of value is guaranteed by fundamental rights and expressed by means of the constitutional text, to a certain extent, overcome their own subjectivity, and made themselves grasped, communicated, understood and implemented; on the other hand, specific and positive rights can be overcome their mechanicalness and lag and no longer rigid and dogmatic by the constitutional text. After more than ten years of active research, the systematic views of the fundamental rights has formed around the concept of fundamental rights, system, effectiveness, function and implementation of fundamental rights.Three decades of contemporary Chinese legal research on rights and its evolution can be generally divided into four stages. Since1980s, the dominant paradigm of the rights' research and the ideas of rights is the analytical jurisprudence; and from1990s, the paradigm of the value of rights' research appeared, as well as sociological theory of rights, and from2000s, the paradigm of constitutionalism appeared around the research of fundamental rights. So the contemporary Chinese rights' research has experienced four stages, including "below the law","up the law","based on the society", and "under the Constitution", and at present a variety of paradigms and ideas of rights show a coexistent and mutual enlightening situation. The "theme" and methods of rights research and the corresponding ideas of rights vary at different stages, but the previous methods, approaches and purposes still exist, and new methods and purposes begin to be concerned and "pursued", and the new features, perspectives and ideas enrich the contemporary study of rights.The ideas of rights is an important force to promote the contemporary Chinese legal system transformation. Marxism about the theory of the consistency between rights and obligations has played a huge role in building the socialist legal system, and has laid the foundation for contemporary China's legal system in transition. The idea of rights as a legal technology provides the means for legal system transformation to regulate people's behavior, and for not a long time a socialist legal system has been built. The idea of rights as legal value has really opened up China's modern transformation form rule by law to rule of law, and from rule of man to rule of law. The idea of rights as social facts make rights issues combined with the historical background and traditional culture of China, provides us with a additional picture of legal construction and transformation. The idea of fundamental rights makes us seize constitutionalism, the key link of the transformation of contemporary Chinese legal system.
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