Can there be universal conception of human rights? Give your arguments. (2021, 15 Marks)
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), written after Nazi genocide, rests rights on the dignity of every person as a person. Whether one conception can bind every society is disputed. The answer argued here is a qualified yes: a thin core can be universal, while its justifications and forms of implementation remain plural.
Arguments for Universality
- Common humanity. Torture, starvation and arbitrary killing injure people alike in every culture. Vulnerability to such harms is universal even where moral vocabularies differ.
- A cross-cultural drafting. The UDHR was not written by the West alone. Peng Chun (P. C.) Chang of China brought Confucian ideas to the drafting, and Charles Malik of Lebanon steered the text through committee. Hansa Mehta of India secured “all human beings” in place of “all men” in Article 1. When UNESCO surveyed thinkers across traditions, Jacques Maritain reported the stance its participants shared: we agree about the rights but on condition that no one asks us why.
- State consent. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has 196 parties. The Vienna Declaration (1993), adopted by consensus, affirmed that the universal nature of rights is beyond question.
- Relative universality. Jack Donnelly (Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice) holds the concept universal and allows variation in interpretation and implementation.
- Plural traditions. Amartya Sen (Human Rights and Asian Values, 1997) found tolerance and free discussion in Ashoka’s edicts and Akbar’s court, so liberty is not a Western monopoly.
Arguments against Universality
- Cultural relativism. Moral standards arise within cultures, and the individual rights-bearer reflects a liberal, Western self.
- Asian values. Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohamad ranked order, family and development above individual claims. The Bangkok Declaration (1993) asked that regional particularities be weighed.
- Post-colonial critique. Makau Mutua (2001) reads the discourse as a savages–victims–saviours narrative. Upendra Baxi (The Future of Human Rights, 2002) warns that a market-friendly paradigm is displacing the UDHR’s, and that selective enforcement serves power.
- Tradition. Edmund Burke held that rights grow from inherited practice, not abstract declaration.
The Middle Path
- Overlapping consensus. In John Rawls‘s idea, different doctrines can endorse the same core for their own reasons, which is Maritain’s point turned into method.
- Bhikhu Parekh (Rethinking Multiculturalism, 2000) treats universal values as the outcome of intercultural dialogue, not the export of one civilisation.
- Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im argues that rights gain cross-cultural legitimacy when reinterpreted from inside each tradition.
Indian Illustration
B. R. Ambedkar turned universal equality against caste from within Indian society, burning the Manusmriti at Mahad in 1927. The Constitution pairs uniform fundamental rights with minority rights (Articles 29–30), showing universality and plurality working together.
Conclusion
A universal conception is possible if it stays thin, dialogic and self-critical: a floor of protections every culture can reach by its own route. Michael Ignatieff (Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, 2001) notes that relativism is usually invoked by those who hold power within a culture. The demand for rights comes from its weaker members, and Sen and Ambedkar show it arising within Asian traditions too.