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This book aims to explicate and defend an account of human rights as universal rights. I do not, however, argue that human rights are timeless, unchanging, or absolute. Quite the contrary, I show that any list or conception of human rights—and the idea of human rights itself—is historically specific and contingent.
- NED-New Edition, 3
On the face of it, the case for universality is clear. In all human societies, people who are in a position of power or influence over other people treat them in certain ways - well or badly, decently or cruelly, fairly or arbitrarily.
- Shashi Tharoor
- The Relative Universality of Human Rights (Revised)
- Abstract
- Keywords
- THE RELATIVE UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS1
- 1. CONCEPTUAL AND SUBSTANTIVE UNIVERSALITY
- 2. UNIVERSAL POSSESSION NOT UNIVERSAL ENFORCEMENT
- 7. VOLUNTARY OR COERCED CONSENSUS?
- 8. ONTOLOGICAL UNIVERSALITY
- 10. SELF-DETERMINATION AND SOVEREIGNTY
- 13. TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
- 14. UNIVERSALISM WITHOUT IMPERIALISM
Jack Donnelly University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/hrhw Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, International Humanitarian Law Commons, International Law Commons, and the Law and Politics Commons
Jack Donnelly. All rights reserved. This article is forthcoming in Human Rights Quarterly. This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable...
Human rights, Universal human rights, Relativism, Law
Human rights as an international political project are closely tied to claims of universality. The foundational international legal instrument is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 1993 World Human Rights Conference, in the first operative paragraph of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, asserted that “the universal natur...
We can begin by distinguishing the conceptual universality implied by the very idea of human rights from substantive universality, the universality of a particular conception or list of human rights. Human rights, following the manifest literal sense of the term, are ordinarily understood to be the rights that one has simply because one is human. ...
Defensible claims of universality, whether conceptual or substantive, are about the rights that we have as human beings. Whether everyone, or even anyone, enjoys these rights is another matter. In far too many countries today the state not only actively refuses to implement, but grossly and systematically violates, most internationally recognized...
Is the transnational consensus underlying international legal and overlapping consensus universality more voluntary or coerced? The influence of the United States and Western Europe should not be underestimated. Example, however, has been more powerful than advocacy and coercion has typically played less of a role than positive inducements such a...
Overlapping consensus implies that human rights can, and in the contemporary world do, have multiple and diverse “foundations.” A single transhistorical foundation would provide what I will call ontological universality.14 Although a single moral code may indeed be objectively correct and valid at all times in all places, at least three problems ...
Self-determination and sovereignty ground a tolerant relativism based on the mutual recognition of peoples/states in an international community. Self-determination, understood as an ethical principle, involves a claim that a free people is entitled to choose for itself its own way of life and its own form of government. The language of “democracy...
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration reads, in its entirety, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and ob...
My account has emphasized the “good” sides of universalism, understood in limited, relative terms. The political dangers of arguments of anthropological universality are modest, at least if one accepts functional and international legal universality. In arguing against ontological universality, however, I ignored the dangers of imperialist intole...
on human rights today would confirm, the universality of human rights is in fact questioned on philosophical, ideological, religious, cultural, moral and practical grounds.
UNIVERSAL DEcLARAtIoN of HUmAN RIgHtS summary version 1 We are all born free and equal. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in the same way. 2 These rights belong to everybody, whatever our differences. 3 We all have the right to life, and to live in freedom and safety. 4 nobody has any right to make us a slave. We ...
Debate about the universality of human rights requires definition of “human rights” and even of “universality.” The idea of human rights is related but not equivalent to justice, the good, democracy.
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The Universality of It All — A feature-length documentary that focuses on the topics of human migration and inequality. Intimate and informative, it explains the complexity of human migration by providing valuable data and showing how this affects two friends in their day-to-day lives.
