University:
University of Wyoming
Course:
INST1101 | First-Year Seminar
Academic year:

2023
Views:

336

Pages:

2
Author:

A Brown

“Human Rights are for Everyone”: Who Decides? When the United Nations published the Human Rights Declaration there was much debate regarding what universal human rights are, and who gets to decide what those rights are. The battle lines remain drawn with this discussion still in process between Westerners and nonWesterners. “In response to cultural claims, one of the most influential framers of UDHR, Pengchun Chang stated that “human rights are for everyone, not just for Westerners or nonWesterners”(Le 205). Therefore, to understand why Peng-chun Chang made this comment we must understand the impact that the Western view has on global human rights. “Rights are about the specific fundamental conditions necessary for life with dignity, not about specifying the good life or good development for everybody under vastly different conditions” (Van Tuijl 622). Human rights are dependent on location. In Le’s text, he explains the four conditions in which human rights are variable. First, was the notion that the individuals involved in making the declaration enjoyed certain aspects of society and “their perspectives did not reflect the concerns of ordinary people” (Le 203). Le then builds on this: “ … the rhetoric and practice of human rights reflect Western values that put more emphasis on the individual than anything else” (Le 204). Western societies practice the idea of being an individual instead of in a group, this bias leads to human rights not equally representing groups in non-Western nations. Additionally, national governments have the obvious right to ignore international norms, especially those that they find contradict their core beliefs thus, “ … the international human rights regime cannot dictate what countries do with their rights practice” (Le 204). The final flaw in implementing universal rights examined by Le is that rights often fall within a Western mindset: “ … some rights that he UDHR recognizes, such as the right of private ownership of the means of production, equality, and marriage and religious freedoms, are at odds with the traditional practices and norms of non-Western societies” (204). What these four points explain is that human rights are universal, but they are not always universally agreed upon. Whether Westerners understand their bias towards human rights or are ignorant towards it, they cannot write the rules for nations that they do not understand. Ultimately, global citizens have to responsibility to educate themselves and understand different perspectives of human rights. After all, “ … one impact of globalization is that the responsibility for the enforcement of human rights cannot be left to the states [governments] alone. It must be shared among different levels of institutions and decision making” (Van Tuijl 625). Nhina Le (2016)Human Rights Universal or Culturally Relative? Peace Review, 28:2 Peter Van Tuijl (2000)Entering the Global dealing room: Reflections on a rights-based framework for NGOs in International Development , Third World Quarterly, 21:4