International Human Rights

International Human Rights

"Asian Values" pointed to the tension between cultural relativism and universalism protecting human rights

The first theme deals with the tension between the universalism of rights and the opposing idea that human rights are culturally relative. Proponents of universal rights assert that human rights apply to all human beings indiscriminately. Cultural relativists argue that this is not so, and that human rights depend on cultural norms and therefore differ from culture to culture or from nation to nation. The “Asian values” ideology is a main example of cultural relativity. Mahathir and Lee Kuan Yew viewed universal human rights as an alien imposition from the West, reflecting specific Western values, and argued for an approach based on “Asian values” instead.

Cultural relativism is for two main reasons. First, relativists themselves lack clarity in using relativism as a conceptual argument. Emphasizing “Asian values”, such as the importance of family and community, does not preclude a society from acknowledging other supposedly “Western” rights-related values. If the argument is simply that some values are given greater priority than others, this is then just a matter of balancing competing values — an exercise that is commonly carried out even in Western countries, for example via the concept of proportionality in the UK as influenced by the European Convention of Human Rights. This does not mean that values are relative from one culture to the other. Western societies also value family and community; Scandinavian countries, for instance, are committed both to social discipline and liberal rights (Freeman, 2006).

Second, the diversity of cultures in terms of ethnicities and religions across countries in Asia and even within countries themselves makes it difficult to claim that there is a single homogenous culture for a region as diverse as Asia. Besides differences based simply on ethnicity or religion, there are differences in culture between the different layers of society itself. Priorities and perceptions differ between the governmental elite and the public; between the urban middle class and the working class; between civil society activists and religious conservatives. Ghai (2009) is right in arguing that economic and social class are more important factors in determining one's perception of rights as compared to traditional “cultural” values.

Third, a related, but distinct, argument is that material bases and the state's political power influence the conception and protection of rights more than culture (Ghai, 2009: 114). The strong authoritarian method of governance used by the ruling party in Malaysia and Singapore is more likely due to the executives' continued monopoly of political power for over half a century since independence rather than a commitment to specific cultural values. The dichotomy between universalism and cultural relativism is therefore based on faulty assumptions to begin with.

The second theme that emerges from the polemic between Western and non-Western human rights perspectives engages with the idea of individualism versus communitarianism. The supposed contrast between Western and Asian models of human rights lies in the perceived priority of the Western approach on an individual's rights against society; by contrast, ...