This is a model answer on a typical "International Protection of Human Rights" question on the nature of human rights (as being universal, as opposed to culturally relative).
Q) The 1992 World Conference on human rights held in Vienna emphasized that “all human
rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and inter-related.” The simple reality is that
they are none of the above. Discuss.
Ans: The statement requires one to explore and examine the historical debate regarding the
nature of the human rights as being universal or culturally relative (as suggested by the
statement). Keeping M.Freeman’s view in mind, i.e., “human rights are most secure when
they are embedded in cultures”, the below discussion will attempt to illustrate that a radical
approach towards human rights in either of the aforementioned ways will lead to the
distortion of the rights of the most vulnerable in the society, for whom the rights have been
designed.
Before going into the debate, it is pertinent to first remind oneself of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and its importance. UDHR has formulated universalism by
saying that it is ‘a common standard of achievement for all people’. Also, it is argued to be
more inclusive than previous declarations, like the US and French Declarations, because: "All
human beings are free and equal in dignity and in rights". Subsequently, in the coming
years, it was maintained by ICCPR and ICESCR that human rights ‘derive from the inherent
dignity of the human person’.
On the 45th anniversary of the UDHR, the universality of human rights was affirmed by the
Vienna conference. There were two themes of dissent that was articulated at the
conference. The first was regarding the content and priorities of implementation of human
rights, as it was argued that civil and political rights were downplaying the economic, social
and cultural rights. Sashi Tharoor has argued that the two sets of rights (and the two
covenants) are like “Siamese twins” that are ‘inseparable and interdependent, sustaining
and nourishing each other’.
Another strand of dissent that was shown at the conference (on basis of ‘Asian values’, for
example) was to challenge the universality of human rights, as not being universal, but
rather ‘historically, socially, and politically contextual and contingent’.
When the conference concluded, this dissent was largely unsuccessful as the universality of
human rights was reaffirmed. This failure of the dissent is confirmed by the statement in the
question, as the rights were characterized as ‘universal, indivisible, interdependent and
inter-related’. Also, the Vienna Declaration and the Programme of Action was adopted
which stated that the ‘promotion and protection of all human rights is a legitimate concern
of the international community’, and, so could erode the sovereignty of a state to have sole
control over its internal affairs.
Coming to the debate itself, it can be said that developing an understanding of the nature of
human rights, one must understand the ‘universalism versus cultural relativism’ debate that
arose after the Vienna Conference. Each of them will now be explored in turn.
Universalism means that rights exist objectively, and extend to all, independent of their
religion, culture, value systems or ideology. On this view, human rights are universally
applicable because they are based on attributes of human beings. For K.Bennoune,
, universality has been a critical tool for human rights advocates and has been under attack
by the powerful. According to her, “Universality is about human dignity, not about
homogeneity".
One of the criticisms shown against Dame Higgins’s speech at the Hague academy, where
she asserted that ‘states and liberal scholars’ typically object to the universality of human
rights, is that she is “rather misplaced” to discuss the experience and exposure of an
inhabitant of ‘Latin America shanty town’. This can be countered by the fact that most
judges around the world belong to the upper class of the society and so does this take away
their legitimacy to adjudicate on matters relating to the lower class of the society, because
of the fact that they are “rather misplaced” to talk about their experience and exposure.
Another criticism of Higgins’s speech is that she has depicted the ‘othering talk’. One can
argue that this criticism can, even more so, apply to the relativist position as they
themselves are seeking to differentiate between people based on cultural and other means.
As Freeman stated, cultural relativists believe that ‘all values are product of socialization and
power’. Universalists, in their view, mistake their own culture for universal principles as they
are ‘ethnocentric and cultural imperialists’. This is in line with some societies’ arguments
that universalism is an attempt to impose alien western values upon them. For cultures that
have been a target of imperialism, a critic in 1970s (as referred to by Sashi Tharoor) has
envisaged fear of human rights as being a Trojan horse which is “surreptitiously introduced”
into civilizations. This fear of human rights potentially leading to imperialism can be said to
be somewhat improper, as S.Tharoor believes, most societies have been subject to change
due to colonization and have been distorted by external influence and participation of
international relations and so cannot be said to be in a pristine. Furthermore, the iron is
that, one might think what would cultural relativists’ position be on matters where
imperialist cultures are involved.
Cultural relativism can be said to be morally implausible as it can require one to tolerate
cultures that are cruel (for e.g., female genital mutilation). On the other hand, as Freeman
argues, universalism cannot value such toleration because it cannot tolerate violations of
human rights. Freeman argued that if challenges to an existing culture is invalidated by
cultural relativism, then both Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ were wrong, respectively,
to challenge the racial discrimination culture and the Jewish orthodoxy.
A case that can prove to be difficult to the universalist position is where the victims of the
human rights abuses legitimize those violations. According to M.Nussbaum, in these
situations, the victims views are not decisive as the injustice that has denied them their
rights, has denied them the ability to imagine the alternatives.
S.Tharoor has argued that a modern state cannot appoint a president and an ambassador to
the UN, and then, in judging human rights conduct of the state, apply tribal traditions. This
should to be supplemented by his argument that “those who freely choose to live by and to
be treated according to their traditional cultures are welcome to do so, provided others who
wish to be free are not oppressed in the name of a culture they prefer to disavow”.
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