Abstract
This chapter outlines the aims of the book, its methodology and locates its approach within the current state of research. It introduces key theoretical premises and lays out the distinction vital to the whole book, i.e., between the idea of human rights on the one hand side and human rights understood as lists of rights on the other. The central assumption here is that the idea of human rights consists of two pillars, i.e., universalism (the equality dimension of human rights) and individualism (the liberty dimension of human rights). In a next step, this chapter addresses the disputed question of human rights’ universality by proposing a new “testing model.” It enables the determination of different degrees of universality once the two pillars of the idea of human rights are erected on various ideological/cultural/religious grounds.
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Notes
- 1.
Human rights, according to Samuel Moyn, have asserted themselves as the most attractive utopia since other “previously more appealing utopias died” (2012, p. 9). Understood as a “human cause,” free from historical necessity and moral self-evidence, human rights are hence always exposed to the risk of being replaced by new utopias in the near or distant future.
- 2.
- 3.
Natalie Oman writes: “An act or standard will not be upheld unless it is justified in the eyes of those to whom the standard is to be applied” (1996, p. 529). Similarly, Michael Ignatieff: “As a language of moral claims, human rights has [sic] gone global by going local […]. We must ask whether any of us would care much about rights if they were articulated only in universalist documents like the Universal Declaration, and whether, in fact, our attachment to these universals depends critically on our prior attachments to rights that are national, rooted in the traditions of flags, a constitution, a set of founders, and a set of national narratives, religious and secular, that give point and meaning to rights” (2005, p. 25). Charles Taylor observes: “Contrary to what many people think, world convergence [on human rights] will not come through a loss or denial of traditions all around, but rather by creative reimmersions of different groups, each in their own spiritual heritage, traveling different routes to the same goal” (1999, p. 144). See also Gregg 2012 and the study of Ron et al. (2017) on the resonance and meaning of “human rights” in selected countries of the global South and their mixed findings.
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- 6.
In fact, without a minimum of political-liberal rights also social economic rights will face difficulties to flourish (and vice versa). Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann states: “To wait for economic development, including a ‘basic needs’ oriented distribution of wealth, to occur before allowing for civil and political liberties is to invite the possibility that such redistribution will never occur” (1983/1985, p. 478). Similarly, Michael Ignatieff: “Without the freedom to articulate and express political opinions, without freedom of speech and assembly, together with freedom of property, agents cannot organize themselves to struggle for social and economic security” (2005, p. 90).
- 7.
“[L]acks in one area cannot be made up simply by giving people a larger amount of another capability” (2006, pp. 166f.; cf. also p. 283). Nussbaum here assumes that any rivalry between different rights claims expresses the conceptual failure to design a “coherent overall set” (ibid., p. 175).
- 8.
- 9.
Despite his rejection of “middle ground positions”, Dahre himself proposes a “relative universalism” which he sets apart from the former, drawing to the localization of human rights language and ideas in indigenous populations in Borneo. This distinction is not entirely plausible and Dahre also does not provide details on what his approach has to say as regards the problem of competing human rights definitions etc.
- 10.
- 11.
These are first and foremost the American Virginia Declaration of Rights (12.6.1776) and, inspired by it, the US Declaration of Independence (DI) (4.7.1776) as well as the French Déclaration des Droits de l‘Homme et du Citoyen (DDHC) (26.8.1789). As their precursors, one could mention the English Habeas Corpus Act (1679) and the Bill of Rights (1689). The Magna Charta Libertatum (MCL) (1215) however, a guarantee not to be arbitrarily arrested given by the king of England to “free men”, lacks the universalism decisive for human rights since it applies to a particular social stratum. It is sometimes argued that already much earlier in human history rights declarations have been issued, namely the “tolerance edict” of Indian emperor Ashoka (died 232 BC), the early-Islamic “Charta of Medina” (622), or also the “Manden-Charter” of Mali in its Kurukan Fuga-constitution (1235). Whereas the Charta of Medina—even though extending the in-group to other monotheistic believers—does not entail a single universal right but instead affirms normative hierarchies between people, Ashoka’s edicts—reflecting the spirit of ahiṃsā—are truly universalistic but in turn seem to lack the notion of individual rights. A particular interesting candidate for an early rights charter is the Manden-Charter, issued by Sundiata Keita (died around 1260), founder of the Mali Empire, which was declared immaterial world heritage by UNESCO in 2009. The difficulty to classify the document, however, stems from doubts about its authenticity (cf. Diakité 2009; Lehners 2014, pp. 33f.). Passed on orally for centuries, this document has not been (re-)discovered and put into writing until 1998. (A translation and interpretation of the Medina-Charta can be found in Arjomand 2009; a translation of Ashoka’s edicts is provided in Dhammika 1993: the Manden-Charter is reproduced in UNESCO 2009 ).
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- 13.
That expression I owe to Gilbert Harman (2001).
- 14.
“What appears to most of us atrocious practice may really be an act of kindness, and is commonly approved or even insisted on, by the old people themselves” (1932, p. 184).
- 15.
See also Stamos 2013, pp. 28ff.
- 16.
For other noncognitivist or relativistic approaches to human rights, see esp. Renteln 1990, Rorty 1993, Tugendhat 1993, Dershowitz 2004, Donnelly 2007, Lohmann 2008, Gregg 2012. Traces of relativist thinking also appear in approaches self-described rather in pluralist or pragmatic terms (e.g. Hoover 2016).
- 17.
However, enforceability as the essential feature of law has been criticized by others, for example H. L. A. Hart, who points out “that there are varieties of law found in all systems which […] do not fit this description” (1961/1997, p. 48). Something like the law would not exist, rather various forms of it. Although Hart’s examples do not convince where he cites rules of permission since that confutes enforceability with force, especially in the context of international (human rights) law the question arises whether in fact different ‘shades of law’ exist (“soft law”).
- 18.
For a topical discussion on Beitz’ approach see also Campbell and Bourne 2018.
- 19.
From such a perspective, ius cogens for example would not be ‘law that coerces’ but rather the expression of a will to law that should coerce. So instead of stating that some actions are in violation of ius cogens, a more honest way of making one’s position clear would be saying: “We [specification needed] are not willing to tolerate such actions [because…].”
- 20.
This is in particular pertinent to the Republic of Ireland where Art. 40.3.3. of its constitution—until recently—declared: “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right” (2015). Abortions after rape were thus—without taking the precarious loophole of claiming suicidal inclinations on the part of the rape victim—prohibited. In 2018, a successful abortion referendum in Ireland lead to a repeal of this constitutional provision. The ECtHR has so far not taken a final position on the question of abortion, but has demanded proportionality and procedural clarity for abortion laws (cf. e.g. 2010). See also Sect. 4.3.2.
- 21.
The “Bogotá” American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (OAS 1948)—issued shortly before the far more famous UDHR—can be considered the first genuine human rights declaration of the twentieth century. Often, the UDHR is referred to as ‘proof’ of a universal consensus on the rights and values entailed in it. In closer examination however, such a consensus is doubtful right from the beginning, not only owing to the considerable remaining colonial conditions under which the document was framed but also to profound disagreements among Western/Latinamerican, Socialist, and also Islamic States on the nature and scope of certain rights. For the drafting process, see esp. Roosevelt 2009, pp. 31–45; Morsink 1999; as well as the drafting reports of the UN GA. For the antecedent UNESCO initiative see UNESCO 1949 and (the critical perspective of) Goodale 2017. For the still underrated contributions of Latinamerican States to contemporary human rights—UDHR and beyond—see esp. Sikking 2017, ch. 3. For early skepticism regarding the project of universal human rights, rooted in cultural relativism, see esp. American Anthropological Association 1947.
- 22.
For instance, apologists of an apartheid-system like the representatives of South Africa in the course of the referendum on the UDHR, argued that in such a system fundamental rights would be granted indiscriminately (“without distinction of race, creed or sex”) (UN 1948a, p. 911), yet other (exclusive) rights were not fundamental to the same extent. One should not let oneself be relegated into such sideways in argumentation. The question here and in other similar cases is never which rights are more fundamental or important, but why they are exclusive. In the case of South Africa, black South Africans were held to be ‘too different’ (not least in moral terms) and hence in need of “separate development” (afsonderlike ontwikkeling). Such a rationale, based on a claim to white supremacy, clearly bursts the boundaries of any margin of human rights deliberation.
- 23.
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Frick, ML. (2019). Introduction. In: Human Rights and Relative Universalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10785-7_1
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