Universal Human Rights and Cultural Relativism: A Fresh View From the New Haven School of Jurisprudence

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Kielsgard
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Universal Human Rights

Globalization and Human Rights

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Evans ◽  
Alex Kirkup
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Social Struggle ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship

The literature on the relationship between globalization and human rights has laid out three responses to the economic, political, and social transformations of globalization within the human rights. First, some scholars consider globalization as complementary to the progressive realization of universal human rights on a global scale. They cite the extension and deepening of the formal human rights regime through international institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the emergence of new private, corporate forms of authority. Second, others perceive of globalization as creating substantial challenges for the realization of universal human rights on a global scale. Such scholars are engaged in criticism of the existing institutional arrangements of the formal human rights regime. They highlight the way in which human rights act as a form of power over people, especially where different ways of life are brought into contact and conflict through transformations associated with globalization. Furthermore, they reject the idea of the progressive realization of human rights as some form of an inevitable unfolding of history or as a singularly desired end point, and instead acknowledge conflicting conceptions of rights as expressions of social struggle A third group of scholars are engaged in the critique of the conception and function of human rights within globalization. From this viewpoint, globalization reveals that ideas of universal and indivisible human rights, along with their progressive realization, are flawed and need to be replaced by more substantive concepts. The critiques stem from the perspectives of neo-Marxism, postpositivism, feminism, and cultural relativism.

Cultural Relativism and Human Rights: Reconsidering the Africanist Discourse

2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonny Ibhawoh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Cultural Legitimacy ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
African Context ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Discussions about cultural relativism and the cross-cultural legitimacy of human rights have been central to contemporary human rights discourse. Much of this discussion has focussed on non-Western societies where scholars have advanced, from a variety of standpoints, arguments for and against the cultural relativism of human rights. Arguments for ‘Asian Values’ and lately, ‘African values’ in the construction of human rights have defined this debate. This paper reviews some of the major arguments and trends in the Africanist discourse on the cultural relativism of human rights. It argues the need to go beyond the polarities that have characterised the debate. It argues that while an Afrocentric conception of human rights is a valid worldview, it need not become the basis for the abrogation of the emerging Universal human rights regime. Rather, it should provide the philosophical foundation for the legitimisation of Universal human rights in the African context and inform the cross-fertilisation of ideas between Africa and the rest of the world.

Universal Human Rights ‘Versus’ Cultural Relativism: the Mediating Role of Constitutional Rights

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Nana Kwame Agyeman ◽  
Alfred Momodu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
International Human

Abstract The claim that human rights are rights that all humans hold everywhere and at all times embodies the concept of universalism. There are however some that do not believe that human rights are universally held. Those who hold such views are widely described as cultural relativists. A rich body of literature exists with a particular focus on the divergence that exists between universalism and cultural relativism. We posit that these areas of antagonism might be overstated. In the light of this, this work investigates the mediating role that constitutional rights may play between these two seemingly opposing schools of thought. Ultimately this paper avers that the constitutional making process that international human rights principles go through in order to emerge as constitutional rights allows for constitutional rights to simultaneously lay claim to both universalist and relativist ideals. Thus, allowing constitutional rights to represent a grossly overlooked middle ground.

Continuing the Conversation on Chinese Human Rights

1997 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 177-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger T. Ames
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Confucian Values ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Human

In recent years China has entered the international human rights debate, consistently making the case for cultural diversity in the formulation of human rights policy. Ames follows this argument of cultural relativism, emphasizing China's cultural differences and critiquing the concept of universal human rights, particularly as presented by Jack Donnelly in his book Universal Human Rights. Discussing the history of universal human rights and Confucian values, Ames asserts that a growing dialogue between China and the United States would benefit China in terms of political and individual rights and the United States in terms of a greater sense of civic virtue.

scholarly journals The Paradox Between Universalism of Human Rights and Relativism of Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 253
Author(s):  
Amit Kumar Singh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
North India ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Hindu Women ◽  
Gender Based

The rising tide of Honour killings against Hindu women and their justified murder in the name of culture by their parents/relatives, superficially reflects the tension between traditional and modern values in India. At a deeper level, cases of Honour killings represent the ongoing struggle between the universality of human rights and cultural relativism. Against this background, this article critically examines the role of universal human rights in relation to cultural relativism whilst assessing the values that claim to support honour killings in Indian culture. This article will examine the universalism of human rights and their influence on gender-based violence- especially relating to honour killings in North India. In addition, I will argue for an approach (drawing on the seminal work of Donnelly who proposed ‘relative universalism of human rights’) allowing the tension between universality and particularity/relativism can be reconciled.

6. Sociological and Anthropological Approaches

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Short
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Common Bond ◽  
The Social ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology

This chapter explores sociological and anthropological approaches to the study of human rights. Anthropologists and sociologists have typically been either positivists or relativists. Consequently they have been slow to develop an analysis of justice and rights, thus lagging behind other disciplines in analysing the growth of universal human rights. This chapter shows how sociology and anthropology finally engaged with the concept of universal human rights after a long disciplinary focus on cultural relativism and legal positivism. It considers how sociology expanded its analysis of citizenship rights to that of human rights and how anthropology turned its ethnographic methodology towards an examination of the ‘social life of rights’. It also describes ‘social constructionism’ as a common bond between sociology and anthropology, laying emphasis on the importance of sociological and anthropological perspectives to the study of human rights.

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