Universalism, Cultural Relativism and Human Rights



Universalism, Cultural Relativism and Human Rights

Introduction

Human rights are a western notion that does not request to Asian countries.” The reason of this term paper is to critically assess the contention that human rights are a western notion that does not request to Asian countries. The term paper focuses on South East Asia and contends that while the notion of human rights is universal in idea and values, there are limitations to its implementation and enforcement in Asian nations due to socio-economic development anxieties, heritage dissimilarities, and the patriarchal environment of Asian societies.

 

The Concept of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was taken up by the United Nations in 1948 and has been approved by almost 200 countries. The adoption of the Declaration was premised on ethics and ethics arising from a yearn amidst territory states to double-check that the atrocities of World War Two would not recur (Magendzo 2004; Misgeld 2004; Wronka 2004). The Declaration stipulates privileges that are advised rudimentary and universal to all humans, transcending dissimilarities in rush, heritage or ethnicity. The four rudimentary tenets of the Declaration include: the right to human dignity, municipal and political privileges, financial, communal and heritage privileges, and solidarity rights. These tenets are the base for universalistic values and worldwide human rights regulation (Buergenthal 2000; Renteln 2000; Shelley 2000). Wasserstrom (2003: 50) has articulated four characterising characteristics of human rights as a universal concept:First, it should be owned by all human beings, as well as only by human beings. Second, because it is the identical right that all human beings own, it should be owned identically by all human beings. Third, because human rights are owned by all human beings, we can direct out as likely candidates any of those privileges which one might have in virtue of occupying any specific rank or connection, for example that of parent, leader, or promisee. And fourth, if there are any human rights, they have the added attribute of being assertable, in a kind of talking, 'against the entire world.'Accordingly, 'human rights' as idea and perform embraces values that are inherent to all human beings and therefore seen to be universal. The publications has mostly sustained this beginning, but has tended to present universal human rights values as polymorphic ideals including assertions of universalism (Osler and Starkey 2006; Reardon 2005). The topic that therefore arises is the 'universality' of human rights, especially in consider to the contention that human rights are a western notion that does not request to Asian countries.

 

The Universal Nature of Human Rights

The polymorphic delineation and beginning of human rights values undermines the capability of them to be universal accurately because they need exact delineation and can therefore be understood distinctly by actors in the worldwide scheme (Frank 2001; Nickel 2007). Indeed, Henkin (2000: 16) observes that, “'international human rights' is a period utilised with changing qualifications of precision (or imprecision) and with distinct connotations in distinct contexts.” Human rights scholars have exacerbated this difficulty either ...