The Complexity of Universalism in Human Rights
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Description
Published as Chapter 2 in Human Rights With Modesty: The Problem of Universalism, András Sajó, ed.
This piece suggests that all claims of universalism must be approached with caution and trepidation. Visions of universality and predestination have been intertwined throughout modern history, and have been deployed as the linchpin for advancing narrow, secretarian, and exclusionary ideas and practices. Universality is not a natural phenomenon, but is always constructed by an interest for a specific purpose with a definite interest. How are local truths legitimately transformed into universal creeds? What value judgments are made, who makes those judgments, how they are made, and for what purposes? Ultimately, we must ask ourselves what good is intended by universal creeds - and whether they redound to the benefits of peoples everywhere. This piece presents a view of human rights that questions the assumptions of the major actors in the human rights movement. It attempts to make an explicit link between human rights norms and the fundamental characteristics of liberal democracy as practiced in the West, and to question the mythical elevation of the human rights corpus beyond politics and political ideology.
Publication Date
2004
Publisher
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
City
Leiden
ISBN
9789004138230
First Page
51
Keywords
Universalism, Human rights, Liberal democracy, West, Norms, Third World
Disciplines
Human Rights Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Makau wa Mutua, The Complexity of Universalism in Human Rights in Human Rights With Modesty: The Problem of Universalism (András Sajó, ed., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2004).
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