It is a Western-believed archetype that human rights are “universal” because as humans, we are endowed with rights to principles such as independence and equality. However, culture, moral relativism, and national origin lead to subjective interpretations of what specific freedoms and rights each individual is entitled to, which in turn affects the definition and enforcement of the term “human rights”.
I assert that human rights are not truly universal in practice for two key reasons. First, because implementation and enforcement of human rights remains difficult and inconsistent due to varying moral and cultural traditions. Second, secondary rights have to be provided by the government – so by their very definition, could be difficult to not just believe in but to implement.
Different cultures and religions have varying definitions of morality – within each culture lies a different value system and definition of what is considered morally “correct” and “incorrect”. Absent an objective measure of morality, there is no feasible way to have universal human rights enforcement because each actor has a different definition of moral integrity vs moral corruption. Even if advocates figure out ways to fit in human rights within different political systems, moral variations driven by cultural and geographical differences would always prevent standardization of all human rights across all nations. Universalizing morals across cultures is instead a prerequisite for such advocacy to become reality – but this is simply infeasible.
Recent events in global history corroborate the view that human rights are not truly “universal”. We can look to 3 examples:
Fall of the Communist bloc. The fall of the Communist bloc made former Soviet states adopt a more Western view of individual liberties rather than the state-commissioned and broader social rights of access to work and healthcare which Communist regimes advocated. The clash between Communist and liberal ideologies pertaining to human rights demonstrates that divergent views or rights prevent the establishment of a universal definition of human rights.
Nationalist ethnic hostilities. During recent ethnic hostilities (examples: China and the Uygher Muslims, Myanmar and the Rohingya Genocide, Syria and the Kurds), oppressive governments deprive these groups of their basic human rights because they perceive no immorality of doing so.
Islamic fundamentalism. In Islamic fundamentalism, the views of human rights are diverse – they tend to vary based on who’s interpreting it. (Examples: Taliban prohibition of girls’ education based on the “principles of Islam”, while Islam encourages learning and education).
Works Cited:
Cover Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights
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