1.2: Universal vs. Relative Rights
The first of the human rights dichotomies, and perhaps the most contentious, encompasses two apparent competing notions of human rights: universality and relativism. Do rights apply to all humans all of the time without any conditions? Or are human rights, and by extension justice, to be understood as conditional? Should rights be understood as deriving from a particular set of circumstances such as nationality, citizenship, age, sex, gender, race, or cultural norms?
Watch this video for a basic overview of human rights and the major debates about their history and application.
Read this entire text, but focus on the introduction and the section before the question and answer portion of this talk. Steiner provides a good introduction to the idea of cultural relativism as it relates to human rights. Think about this idea in the context of who wrote and passed the International Bill of Rights and signed each document. Whose understanding of rights are most protected?
Consider this article in connection with the one on cultural relativism above. How would you explain the dichotomy between cosmopolitan or universal understandings of human rights and relativist ideas? Think about these different understandings about the concept of rights in relation to the International Bill of Rights in 1.1. Are there some rights there you would consider to be universal, and others you think might be relative? What differentiates them? Who has the right to decide which is which?
This brief article on the Bandung Conference challenges the perception that human rights are more highly valued in Western countries by discussing human rights' centrality at the conference. However, for participating countries, the achievement of human rights was intrinsically linked to the process of decolonization, and the attainment of full independence and national sovereignty for formerly colonized countries. Consider how this perspective compares to what you have previously encountered regarding human rights in non-Western contexts.