TRAINING ON HUMAN RIGHTS FOR YOUTH MEMBERS OF EUROPEAN ORGANIZATIONS http://humanrightsforyouth.org/
expression, religious and ethnic equality, and the equality of women - continue to meet deep resistance2. The growing consensus in the West that human rights are universal has been fiercely opposed by critics in other parts of the world. A series of broad, culturally grounded objections to the concept of universal human rights exists. The first is philosophical. All rights and values are defined and limited by cultural perceptions. There is no universal culture; therefore there are no universal human rights. Some philosophers have objected that the concept is founded on an individualistic view of people, whose greatest need is to be free from interference by the state. Non-Western societies often have a communitarian ethic which sees society as more than the sum of its individual members and considers duties to be more important than rights. In Africa it is usually the community that protects and nurtures the individual: 'I am because we are, and because we are therefore I am.' In most African societies, group rights had precedence over individual rights and conflict resolution would not necessarily be based on the assertion and defence of legal rights. There is the also the usual North/South argument. The Universal Declaration was adopted at a time when most Third World countries were still under colonial rule. 'Human rights' are only a cover for Western intervention in the affairs of the developing world. Developing countries, some also argue, cannot afford human rights since the tasks of nation-building and economic development are still unfinished. Suspending or limiting human rights is thus the sacrifice of the few for the benefit of the many. The human rights concept is understood and upheld only by a small Westernized minority in developing countries; it does not extend to the lowest rungs of the ladder. Universality in these circumstances would be a universality of the privileged. Inseparable from the issues of tradition, is the issue of religion. For religious critics of the universalist definition of human rights, nothing can be universal that is not founded on transcendent values, symbolized by God, and sanctioned by the guardians of the various faiths. They point out that the cardinal document of the contemporary human rights movement, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, can claim no such heritage3.
Culture and human rights Cultural rights Every human being has the right to culture, including the right to enjoy and develop cultural life and identity. The right to culture is limited at the point at which it infringes on another human right. No right can be used at the expense or destruction of another, in accordance with international law. This means that cultural rights cannot be invoked or interpreted in such a way as to justify any act leading to the denial or violation of other human rights and fundamental freedoms. As such, 2
Louis Henkin, The Universality of the Concept of Human Rights. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1989 3 Shashi Tharoor, Are Human Rights Universal? , New Internationalist magazine 2001 http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Human_Rights/Are_HR_Universal%3F.html (accessed on 5 of May 2011)
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