Paper Topic:

Universalism, Cultural Relativism and Human Rights

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The issue of implementing a widely accepted Human Rights policy has become a serious hurdle in recent years for many non Western nations like China Iran and Africa . Over the past couple of decades many nations in Asia Africa and the middle East have found themselves embroiled in human rights violation controversies and have been at the receiving end of Western based criticism for these policies (D . Bell 1996 , Some have often faced severe financial penalties

and boycotts from the Western world which has effected their economic development these controversies have given birth to a new philosophical debate on Universalist stance on human rights versus the relativist stance . The debate centres on the precept of whether the western based human right theories can be implemented in culturally diverse nations at a universal level

The Universalist theory of Human Rights is predominantly derived from Western philosophy and places tremendous importance on the rights of an individual . This theory has its roots in Greek philosophy , principles of Christianity and the philosophical musings of European Enlightenment thinkers (D . Bell 1999 , The universalist approach to Human Rights propagates that certain basic human rights are inherent to safeguard the existence of every human and can be identified by using either religion nature or reason This theory holds the percept that all individuals should be granted certain rights by the very virtue of their humanity and that these rights cannot be conditioned...

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