Universalism and Relativism in Human Rights Essay

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Human Rights

The closest thing to a universally-accepted definition of human rights comes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). That body's definition is founded on the principle that human rights are inalienable and universal. That is, they apply to all human beings and that all are entitled to these rights without discrimination. The UN definition also holds that human rights are "interrelated, interdependent and indivisible" (OHCHR, 2016). The OHCHR cites such rights as the right to work, the right to self-determination, to social security and education, to equality before the law and to freedom of expression (OHCHR, 2016). How these broad concepts are to be operationalized is not specified by the OHCHR. Indeed, there are some inherent contradictions immediately apparent between the definition set forth by the OHCHR and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundational document for the modern neoliberal concept. As an example, Article 2 states "no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs," which conflicts with the principle of equality under law, given that each territory has its own laws, and these differ dramatically; we cannot all have the same equality, when living under different laws. There are further pragmatic issues not conceived in 1948, such as the reality that the world's resources are finite, yet to meet the rights of all humans, if the number of humans continues to grow exponentially, will eventually take us to a zero sum game where the rights of some must inevitably be sacrificed to meet the rights of others.

Beyond such pragmatic issues, there are philosophical critiques of the human rights concept, in particular how it manifests today. Broadly, such critiques come from universalist considerations, or from relativist considerations. This paper will concern itself with these critiques, and seek to answer the question of whether these positions are reconcilable. Since the Universal Declaration, the apparent conflict between universalism and relativism has characterized debate about the nature of human rights (Perry, 1997; Donoho, 1990).

Fundamental Underpinnings of Human Rights

The idea of human rights is rooted in the idea of natural rights, that human beings have specific rights by their very nature. In Western culture, these rights have traditionally only extended to dealing with other human beings, but in other cultures such as Native American, these rights also govern our relationship with the environment. In the West, then, human beings have such special rights as a distinct class of rights from those of anything else on this planet, which alone gives rise to several conflicts that are subject to critique (Wenar, 2015). The UN's vision of human rights largely evolves from Western tradition. Influences on this tradition include "the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the United States Constitution" along with philosophical roots in Suarez, Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke and Kant (Nickel, 2014). Shestack (1998) points out the human rights are intended to trump other rights, including the rights inherent to one's culture; a culture is a subset of humanity, its rights important, but lesser.

The universality of human rights is one of the most fundamental underpinnings. The idea that all humans have these rights is critical to the political dimension, wherein state actors are responsible for providing such rights to all those within their borders. However, universality is also one of the most important sources of conflict within the understanding of human rights, because it gives rise to relativist arguments. Rights can conflict with one another. How the rights of women or minorities can be reconciled with the right to practice religion, knowing that some religions actively practice discrimination in various forms, is one of the unresolved tensions of the UN's definition of human rights. Such conflicts arise because both universality and relativism are built into the concept of human rights, and scholars have used a variety of case studies to highlight such conflicts, a classic one being in the Middle East (Halliday, 1995).

Another underpinning is that human rights are of high priority, that is to say that they are trumps, more important that other rights (Nickel, 2014; Wenar, 2015). Human rights are more important than corporate rights, than state rights, and rights that apply to humans but are not among those considered to be universal human rights. Again, this concept is important for the implementation of human rights by state actors, but give rise to conflicts.

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An example of such a conflict is that in a democratic state, the people elect officials to set policy. Thus, policy should reflect the will of the people. As Mill argued that one person in disagreement with all other people has equal rights to all the other people, in any political system there is a trade-off between the right of people to determine their own course, and the demand that, say, water or education must be provided for all. Both are human rights, both can exist in conflict with one another, and there is no resolution yet proffered by the bodies that have taken it upon themselves to declare the definition of human rights.

Universalism

As universalism is at the root of the modern conception of human rights, it is naturally one of the points where critics examine the notion. The universalist perspective not only holds that human rights are universal, but that they can be defined, and that they are always right. Such an approach does not leave room for interpretation. This brings about conflict with the ability of cultures to self-determine, where such cultures define their own ideas of human rights differently. The concept of universalism is critical to the idea of human rights, which specifically seeks to protect the rights of minorities, women and other groups to whom such rights have not traditionally been extended -- there are many cases studies tackling this challenge (James, 1994). The extension of such rights has to some extent been considered a precondition of acceptance into the international community, at least on paper, the idea of human rights being used as a framework for negotiating minority rights in conflict resolution, for example (Ghai, 2000).

One criticism of the universalist approach to human rights lies within its strong Western influence. Different cultures have sometimes varying perspectives on the ideas of human rights, and even the ideas that such rights are universal. Universality is, some view, a Western concept, which without the balance of relativism leads the concept of human rights to be something of a Trojan horse to promote Western values across the world (Renteln, 2013 ). This view is at odds with the fundamental concept of human rights, however. The general idea is that all human have equal rights, that cultures cannot simply pick and choose which people have which rights. Universalism is necessary to counterbalance the entrenched structures of power and privilege that exist -- that power and privilege do not give any human or any sovereign entity the right to dictate or devolve rights to people.

One of the other issues with universalism, something to which relativists cling, is the idea that there is no inherently superior culture in this world. That each of the world's cultures has arisen from its own context, has its own value, and can reasonably make its own determinations about many issues of rights and justice. The world's different cultures can be compatible with the notion of universal human rights under this thinking. Some cultures, for example, are more collectivist, about community, and it is to the community that human rights accrue. This seems at odds with the universalist approach, which favours the idea that human rights accrue to the individual (Basnet & Albalooshi, 2012). There is substantial inherent conflict between these two ideas, in particular with respect to the rights of women, to minorities within a community, and to the LGBTQ community with many of the world's societies. Human rights are, in a sense, defined as "human" and not "community" for a reason. It is only in the way such rights are defined that some rights are described more as individual and some more as community -- the human rights concepts are sufficiently vague in their description that both interpretations are reasonable.

Relativism

The idea of relativism is therefore embedded in some of the dictates of the Universal Declaration. Societies have the right to self-determination, which goes hand-in-hand with the ability to define themselves. Yet, ultimately, the right to define whether one belongs to a society or not is an individual choice. It cannot be ascribed by anybody else that one must belong to a society simply because of where he/she was born, or lives, in particular where such a definition would subject that person to discrimination and a denial of other rights.

At its core, relativism is optimistic. Relativists seek to see the world as it could be, where different cultures can exist side-by-side.....

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