Human rights on the thin red line between universality and relativity

Abstract

Human rights represent an open legal and political concept with a very wide value variable. Academic discussions on human rights nature have mostly commenced after the World War II during the trend of human rights internationalization, reaching their climax after the Cold war. This paper examines actual theories on human rights, from those accepting them as universal, up to those marking another pole, favoring idea of absolute relativity of human rights. The author asserts that the most acceptable should be a middle solution, standing of moderate relativism or position of relative universalism of human rights. He claims that only a very limited circle of basic, 'substantial' human rights, having been accepted through an intercultural consensus, may pretend to be treated as universal. Out of that narrow sphere, there are many other human rights whose meaning and interpretation depend strongly upon concrete cultural context. The author points that in those cases it is important to respect a relativistic discourse and that the only solution should be explored within an intercultural and inter-civilizational dialogue, where non-western values should be equally treated as the western ones.

Keywords

• Human Rights
• Universality of Human Rights
• Relativity of Human Rights
• Jack Donnelly
• Michael Goodhart