CONTEMPORARY HUMAN RIGHTS: IRRELEVANT WESTERN IMPOSITION OR UNIVERSALLY RELEVANT CONCEPT?
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Abstract
Human rights have for long been plunged in the universalism-relativism debate. Many “cultural relativists” have pointed out the predominantly Western origin, conception and to the extreme applicability of human rights. An-na’im for example contends in relation to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “as for the peoples of Africa and Asia, the format and process of adopting the declaration did not permit the effective participation of their indegenous cultures.” Others have rather stated that though the shaping of human rights was predominantly Western there was a strong non-Western representation. Closely related to this has been the issue of whether or not human rights are relevant to the whole world. We argue in this paper that the origins of human rights in its current format was initially shaped by mostly Western actors but with strong non-Western representation . We also argue that the field of human rights has had several influences from different areas and that no matter how we look at the origins human rights remain relevant to all human beings irrespective of their origins or characteristics. However, we argue for local contexts to be taken into consideration in the application of human rights.
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