Human Rights - Cultural or Universal?

Human rights

Universal

Or Cultural?

Introduction

Introduction Exercise

How well do you know the Declaration of human rights?

Split into four groups

In front of you are 15 statements

• 10 are true DHR statements
• 5 are altered DHR statements or completely made up

Any surprises?

Now rank in order of importance

Which of these do you think could be argued are NOT universal, but cultural instead?

What people or social groups may think disagree with some of these?

Are these similar or different to your most important human rights?

Its creation

18 members of the committee

9 most influential

1 women

2 non Caucasian members

Mostly Western presence

Is this representative of the world?

Two main floors in the DHR:

The western bias

The lack of understanding of non western views

Flying North

The Debate

Many statements of the declaration of human rights conflict with certain cultural aspects, for example:

• Different marital practices: forced marriage, child marriages, limitations of who can marry
• Sharia (Islamic) law

Child labour

History shows how other countries transferred from child intensive economies to child protective economies, so will child labour soon be eradicated in the developing economies of today?

Conclusion

Source: Akhila Kolisetty

A scale of perspectives

For Universalism

Article 27: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Source: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Radical Universalism:

Culture is irrelevant to the validity of moral rights and rules

Weak Cultural Relativism:

Although culture is important for rights and rules, rights are universally accepted except for a few rare cases

Which is more important,the right to your own culture or enforcements of other human rights?

After the convention for the eradication for all forms of discrimination against women the United Nations advised states to change their culture to accomodate women's human rights.

Engle 1999

This advice is now encouraged in regard to other Human rights violations

• Human rights are the rights everyone has simply because we are human beings; therefore, human rights are universal by definition
• Human rights are a standard of protection for human dignity
• Human rights encourage people to make positive changes in their society and the world around them
• Human rights give people control over their own lives, wishes and aspirations
• Human rights bring peace
• Human rights protect individuals from harm and from harming others
• Human rights increase equality in a society; equal access to services/treatment indiscriminate of ethnicity, age, gender, education...
• Human rights protect and help the development of the future generation
• Cultural relativism attempts to justify repressive practises
• Cultural relativism undermines the value and utility human rights law
• Cultural relativism: the concept “human being” is of no moral significance; judged on gender, economic needs (e.g. child labour for income)
• Cultural relativism = moral cowardice; a failure to address issues the wider community perceive to be wrong
• If there is an absence of human rights culture at a local level, it does not mean the population is satisfied with their cultural practises (e.g. due to fear of opposing cultural practises)
• Many religions value the sanctity of life; therefore, why not protect human life?
• If boundaries are not set, how far may a country/society go in the name of culture?

Strong Cultural Relativism:

Rights and rules are culturally determined; a few basic rights are accepted, but most depend on a society’s culture

Radical Cultural Relativism:

Culture is the sole source of the validity of moral rights and rules

The Declaration of Human rights

It was created after World War 2 to make sure atrocities experienced by the world would never happen again

It is supposed to have all the fundamental human rights of a human that should never be taken away

It has caused the creation of another 80 treaties and declarations

Source: Living in Philistia blog

Source: Amnesty International

Rank in order or rights you believe are the most violated?

When?

• The first draft was drawn up in 1946
• First Authorised in 1947
• 10th December 1948 it was adopted

For Cultural Relativism

Exercise 1

Human Rights: How to make it work

• Split into 2/4 groups - Universal vs. Cultural
• As a team, rank 5 strongest arguments for universalism or cultural relativism
• Choose one person to briefly present your arguments and why you chose them

• Human rights are based on human nature; human nature differs between cultures, therefore human rights should too
• Human rights impose a universal cultural standard; there is no universal culture, so human rights cannot be universal
• Cultural relativism protects the nature of societies
• Cultural relativism promotes solidarity in a society
• Cultural relativism protects a country’s cultural heritage
• Cultural relativism protects a culture from being dominated by another
• Imposing human rights undervalues the traditions of another country
• Human rights are a “Western concept” and so are irrelevant to less-developed countries
• Universal human rights implementation causes “culture shock”; hasty modernisation of traditional practises leads to hostility in the population
• Human rights are an “imported idea” which threatens the security and stability of the country (e.g. tension as surrounding countries disagree with practises)
• Universal human rights standards lead to cultural erosion as old practises are lost
• Universal human rights standards erode community spirit due to conflicts of belief

• Human rights at a grass roots level, e.g. tribal chiefs

• Sustainability: Integrated, not imposed to encourage ownership of rights and therefore their enforcement

• Acceptance: Conceptual change developed gradually, to avoid hostility

• Conceptual change: Education vital - raises awareness of rights

Exercise 2

• Re-evaluate your position on human rights - Radical Universalist, Radical Cultural Relativist, or somewhere in between?

• Everyone is entitled to all rights without distinction such as

from race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

• No-one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.

The Asian Values Debate

• Men and women, without any limitation, have the right to marry and found a family. Marriage shall be entered freely and with full consent.

• Challenges the view that human rights are universal, as they are based on western ideologies.

• Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

• Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community.

• However, as Asia is such a culturally diverse continent, there is no single set of Asian values to support this.

The Asian Values-Human Rights debate is sometimes considered to be a power-play between governments

The Child Labour Debate

• It will be the major powers who will hold the responsibilty of interpreting cultural sources of human rights.

A study of Britain industrialising shows how as the country industrialised and the child labour roles changed, often becoming worse, more people started to question the ethics of child labour.

• Lee Kuan Yew (ex primeminister of of Singapore)

argues that Western values has led to the proliferation of

"guns, drugs,violent crimes and vagrancy...in sum the

breakdown of civil society."

• Comparing Asian and Western values frames Asian values

in a positive light.

• Culture determines a countries fate.

• Marriage- Statistics place the divorce rate for arranged

marriages much lower than personal choice.

http://www.poverty.org.uk/09/index.shtml#def

• Cultural relativist approach precludes the existence of

cross cultural and universal values.

• Human rights are universal in character and apply to all

people regardless of their cultural or national identity.

• Referring to arranged marriages, there is nothing wrong

with the practice taking place, as long as those involved are

willingly choosing to do so.

• Adamantia Pollis stated that some East Asian countries

have gone on to "exploit the language of cultural relativism

to justify their own actions"

Children are needed for the factories etc to be competitive, E.G why pay a mans wages for a job that a child could do. (applies to local factories not MNC’s)

Families need the extra income or extra labour provided in agricultural areas.

It teaches the children a life skill,

It stops the children from becoming idle (for example if there is not a question of education).

Its tradition, and children are more seen as young adults.

Its restricting the children from education which in the long run would develop the areas and lead to high income and other positive externalities.

Its exploitation by industrialists and the higher bands of society at its core.

Unfair competition with little rights for children as they are often undeclared, (invisible workforce= silent voice).

Leads to greater inequality as children in different societies may all get educated.

Leads to increased barriers of development.

• Culture is often used as a source of justifying violations of human rights, and of challenging the universality of human rights.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Great Britain became the first country to industrialize. Because of this, it was also the first country where the nature of children's work changed so dramatically that child labour became seen as a social problem and a political issue.

Article 23.

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay

Article 26.

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

With development, there comes development of social awareness, and consequently a reduction of child labour?