The Debate Of Feminists And Cultural Relativists

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a universal document that is likely acceptable and applicable for everyone. The UDHR identifies basic human rights that are based on the theory of Universalism. On the other hand, relativist claims that human rights are culturally dependent, and that no moral values can be made to apply to all cultures. Second notion is the UDHR are product of western political perspectives, such as Magna Carta of the UK, the American Bill of Rights, and the French revolution. Looking at these different theories about relativism from the Kevin Avruch's piece of reading, I believe that all three forms of relativism (descriptive, normative, and epistemic) contradicts the claim by the principles of the UDHR.

Eva Brems, 'Enemies or Allies? Feminism and Cultural Relativism as Dissident Voices in Human Rights Discourse.' (1997), Human Rights Quarterly.

(a) The universalists conceptualize rights as “a special narrow category of rights based on a universal notion of the inherent dignity of human beings and human rights claims are morally justified demands to rectify injustice” (Lecture 2). Human rights ensure that all human beings have these inherent dignity and rights. The universalism puts more emphasis on the individual rights to impede states from violation of these rights, winning over state sovereignty. The tension of this approach is the rise of cultural legitimacy, claiming that rights are relative and culture are important to non-Western states to make international human rights feasible. The cultural relativists recognize that “every culture has specific world view, with its own notion of good and noble paths, its own notion of how to be a full human” (Lecture 2). To non-Western countries that highly values and emphasizes cultural heritage and traditions in daily life, the concept of human rights is redefined into a more local context that fits their culture. As An Na’im puts it, the violations of human rights take place due to the lack of cultural legitimacy of human rights standards (2009: 68). Culture is significant to address and respect the different ideas of human rights among different culture and to make the non-western countries more familiar with human rights. (b) An Na’im is opposed to the universality of human rights and favors the cultural relativist of human rights. He argues that the “observance of human rights standards can be improved through the enhancement of the cultural legitimacy of those standards (An Na’im 2009: 69). He emphasizes the importance of “cross-cultural legitimacy” (An Na’im 2009: 69) to develop human rights through the interpretation of different cultural norms. He further asserts that universalism is “based on ethnocentricity” and “cultural diversity is unavoidable” (An Na’im 2009: 72,77). For example, the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment is not

capacity is not conceded by all cultures.” It is important to note the significant influence culture has on women’s rights issues. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) raised a variety of questions dealing with the inference of the term “universal.” It infers that the declaration is meant to represent human rights in all countries, including those that are non-Western with highly complex cultures and societies. By creating this agreement and applying it as universal it has the “contradictory effect of undermining communities’ autonomous rights to enjoy their own culture.” Additionally, in looking at historic actions of Western countries Anthropologists were concerned that the UDHR was a “series of attempts by the West to impose its values on other societies.” This can very well be the case because of the many debates that occurred surrounding women’s rights and female genital mutilation practices. Many criticized Western scholars claiming that they could not “legitimately criticize ‘traditional’ practices that seemed to violate women’s rights.” The context in which cultural practices are birthed are placed within the social construct of the origin society. One cannot possibly understand the human rights implications of another cultures if they don’t understand the culture as a participant. Also, there

Cultural Relativist and Feminist Critiques of International Human Rights - Friends or Foes? By Oonagh Reitman journal is clearly explicate the idea of how relativism and feminism assessed that human right that we have and used nowadays is no longer relevance. This journal explicate about the difference idea between feminist and cultural relativist towards human right even though both agreed that human rights need to reconstruct and there are several point that human rights is still lacking. However, these two perspective also have several similarities even though sometimes they are still very different in terms of approaches strategies. The fact that feminist and cultural relativist have several similarities lead into the corporate possibilities,

Human rights is a pressing and ever growing field of work. In his novel “The Heart of Human Rights”, Allen Buchanan points out the practice of human rights involves:

Human rights are moral principles that set out specific standards of human behavior, and are normally ensured as lawful rights in both national and global law. They are acknowledged to be inalienable, since anybody is characteristically qualified for it essentially on the grounds that they are individuals. Whatever our nationality, sex, shade, religion, dialect, or ethnic source is, we are all just as qualified for our rights without separation or discrimination. All human rights are resolute and interdependent, whether they are civil and political rights, or economic, social and cultural rights. The change of one right encourages headway of the others. Also, the hardship of one right unfavorably influences the others. While choosing which rights are human rights, it is conceivable to make either excessively little or excessively of worldwide records. At the point when a right is on the authority records of human rights, that settles its status as a human right.

This journal chosen is Cultural Relativist and Feminist Critiques of International Human Rights - Friends or Foes? By Oonagh Reitman (1997) discuss about the similarities between two critiques of international human rights, Cultural Relativist and Feminist. The journal highlights comparing the Cultural Relativist and Feminist of Human Rights. In further, we can see these critiques, the Cultural Relativist and the Feminist have come to oppose each other world of women’s international rights.

Both international law and human rights law work towards establishing some grounding to maintain a sense of peace within and between nations. However, they also have differences between them such as what their regulations apply to, and how they are applied. The main differences between international law and human rights law is that one is intended to govern the relations between independent states, whereas human rights law are intended to maintain the standards without which people cannot live with respect to themselves. As written by scholar Celina Romany in her text called “Women as Aliens: A Feminist Critique of the Public/Private Distinction in International Human Rights Law,” neither international law nor human rights law are likely to recognize, secure or actualize human rights for all humans. In her text, she particularly addresses women and how they are the “paradigmatic alien subjects of international law”. This statement can be reinforced by various aspects of systemic inequalities that women face, thus proving the insufficiency of human rights law in recognizing, securing and actualizing all human rights for all.

Up until this point, I have steered clear from a prescriptive theorization of human rights and maintained a descriptive stance in which I have offered the naturalist description on the way in which we come to think of universal human rights and moreover, offered an explanation which confronts the problems of relativism that arises on the subject matter. Now I will attempt to give an account on how all things considered in the first two sections of my paper, we ought to think about universal rights relative to the international legal system. My analysis here will be two-fold. First, I will begin by suggesting that it may be useful to revise our conception of universal human rights so that we may sever its connection with the absolutism vs

The aim of this essay is to critically evaluate the universal and relative nature of human rights postulated by the eminent scholars, who have argued on both the sides to arrive at a conclusion, whether the rights stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human rights are universal, relative or both. The idea behind this essay is to neutralize the interest of both the scholars.

Human rights are perhaps the only concept which has remained the focus of many debates in the modern world. The mere thought that all humans across the world irrespective of their culture, religion and race are equal and deserve equality is perhaps the reason why it holds such significance among people. “There is something deeply attractive in the idea that every person anywhere in the world, irrespective of citizenship or territorial legislation, has some basic rights, which others should respect.”(Sen, 2004) It allows each human being the dignity and respect to live and feel as much important in the world as any other. Similarly to authenticate the respect and dignity of every individual Universal Declaration of Human Rights immediately after its preamble declares “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…” (U.N) The charter was drafted keeping in mind the atrocities that occurred during the second world war. It was a solemn vow that all the nations in the world will ensure such a catastrophe may never occur and that all shall work together to ensure world peace. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights hoped it will carry the idea of human rights in to every corner of the world.(Johnson, 2010) Universal Declaration of Human rights served as the building block on which the frame work for future human rights was to be built upon. With time other international conventions or treaties were formulated. This was done to provide a more solid basis to

The lynchpin of the 21st century has been the notion of liberalism, whether in relation to individuals, a race or even a nation. Societies are founded on the idea of dominion and other societies have learned to embrace cultural differences and give credibility to them as a result. However today’s era of globalisation has yet to shake off fully the imperialistic attitude that was prevalent up until the 1800. While the intention behind the creation of fundamental human rights – such as the Charter of the United Nations – was an amicable one, the reality has given rise to anomalies when dealing with nations that are outside the norm of accepted practices. This strains the concept of international human rights as it contests the concept of state sovereignty. This essay will argue that international human rights activity can be seen as a struggle to balance the competing claims of sovereignty and international human rights. While some activity by amalgamated international forces are warranted, the process in determining action is in itself the cause of the tension rather than the act.

The principle of equality of women and men and the corresponding prohibition of discrimination is a fundamental principle of international human rights law. Globally, 1 in 3 women will experience gender-based violence in her lifetime. It took decades of advocacy for gendered diversities to become effectively acknowledged as relevant to the international human rights system. In this process, the recognition that “women’s rights are human rights” played a central role.

In this essay, the writer will illuminate the role of standardisation in facilitating human rights, with particular focus on women’s rights. For a kick up, clear definitions of the key terms, standardisation and human rights will be given. The connection between the two will be further exploited in depth as the write up progresses. According to Wikipedia.org, human rights are ‘commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being…’ It follows therefore, that women’s rights relate to the freedom and right that women are entitled to simply by virtue of being a