Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 1996
Rights
Abstract
This piece argues that although human rights is an ideology although it presents itself as non-ideological, non-partisan, and universal. It contends that the human rights corpus, taken as a whole, as a document of ideals and values, particularly the positive law of human rights, requires the construction of states to reflect the structures and values of governance that derive from Western liberalism, especially the contemporary variations of liberal democracy practiced in Western democracies. Viewed from this perspective, the human rights regime has serious and dramatic implications for questions of cultural diversity, the sovereignty of states, and the universality of human rights.
Publication Title
Virginia Journal of International Law
First Page
589
Last Page
657
Recommended Citation
Makau w. Mutua,
The Ideology of Human Rights,
36
Va. J. Int'l L.
589
(1996).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles/572