Human Rights: Universalists Vs Culturalists
Human Rights – Universalists and Relativists
There are several key issue that divide Universalists and relativists in the ongoing debate about the cross-cultural implementation of human rights. This paper will focus on the arguments in which a universal rights regime sought to defend its cross-cultural validity, as well as the arguments that the proponents of Cultural particularity resisted or rejected. In answering these questions, it is important that we first establish certain key concepts and views, such as the views universalists and relativists held, and the potential objections that can be raised against such views. In particular, we will turn to Charney’s and Bell’s work for their insightful examination of such issues.
Charney argues that all individuals possess human rights. Our rights and liberty are protected from other violating them, and furthermore, these rights are said to produce equality amongst all individuals. Most importantly, these rights are said to be universal, in the sense that they apply to all cultures or regimes, emphasis on ‘all’. So what exactly do universal human rights consist in? Charney believes that a distinction can be made between basic unalienable human rights that apply to all people across all cultures, and certain rights that are valid insofar as they pertain to the culture in question. But this still does not answer how one would define what universal human rights consist in. Charney believes that he can define exactly what these rights are simply by “transcending cultural particularity”. By particularity he means those basic human rights that are not concerned with any particular culture, but rather by all universal cultures. Charney’s arguments for supporting such a claim unfortunately are not as convincing as they ought to be. He suggests that what makes certain basic human rights universal is that they can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But this only begs the question, that is,...
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