Are Human Rights Universal

Are Human Rights universal?

Human rights proponents assert that all human beings are guaranteed certain rights ranging from the right to life and freedom from torture to socio-economic rights such as the right to healthcare and education. The introduction of human rights is a fairly new phenomenon and can be traced back to the French revolution. More recently, following some of the worst events and atrocities of World War II such as the German concentration camps, the Japanese treatment of the Chinese and even the allied bombings of Dresden, the issue of human rights came to the fore of world concern. The modern foundation of what people now view as human rights and the basis of 60 separate human rights instruments was established in the United Nations Universal Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR) on the 10 December 1948. The declaration had big names behind it such as Eleanor Roosevelt who was a big proponent and it was drafted with the cooperation of several different countries not all developed countries but other third world countries such as Chile, Cuba and India partook in the drafting process as well, taking several years to complete. The issue of human rights is often in the news, most recently with the protests in Tibet against Chinese rule and the worldwide protests which followed. According to the west, China has had a long running problem with human rights abuses, for example how it allows people to buy kidneys off political prisoners who have theirs removed without anaesthetic and are then sealed up in a bag and incinerated.[1] Surely that is abhorrent and a condemnation of such acts is the least of what should be done, yet on what basis do we even have the right to question another sovereign country's handling of internal affairs? William Rasch questions whether there can be any universality to human rights given the differences in culture, religion and how genders are treated differently around the world. He claims that “Such identification is... [continues]

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