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IRPS 220: FALL 2017
SHORT ANSWER ASSIGNMENT #2
DUE: OCT. 12TH BY MIDNIGHT IN CANVAS
Directions: There are three groups of questions below. Please read and carefully
follow the directions for each group.
Purpose:
The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your knowledge of the
required course material. Outside sources should not be used. Each
response needs to be 1-2 well-developed paragraphs in length (150-300
words) and written in your own words. Please use either the Chicago (POL
majors) or APA (CRJ majors) Style Manuals (Library website) for all
citations and other document formatting. The assignment will be graded
using the associated Rubric in our Canvas course. (100 pts)
Reminder: Your assignment will automatically be sent to Turnitin when you submit it.
Therefore, I highly recommend that you submit it a day or two early to
determine if all material has been properly cited. This will provide time for
you to correct any citation errors that may occur.
Short Answer Questions:
Group A:
Please respond to one of the following questions. Clearly indicate which
question to which you are responding.
1. Discuss at least 4 distinct ways in which the “Justice” Star Trek episode depicts
the tension between individual and collective rights. Be sure to reference specific
events of the video to explain your responses. (10 points)
2. Discuss at least 4 distinct ways in which “The Masterpiece Society” Star Trek
episode depicts the tension between individual and collective rights. Be sure to
reference specific events of the video to explain your responses. (10 points)
Group B:
Please respond to both of the questions below. Clearly label each
response.
1. Thoroughly explain why you agree or disagree with Lam’s arguments about the
collective rights of self-determination and territoriality. Be sure to reference
specific details of her argument to explain your responses. (20 points)
2. Select 3 distinct human rights and discuss the manner in which the UNDRIP
recognizes them as individual or collective rights, or both. Be sure to reference at
least 3 different specific articles to explain your responses. (20 points)
Group C:
Please respond to both of the questions below. Clearly label each
response.
1. Which, if any, of the variations of universal human rights discussed by Donnelly
do you think is/are the most important or relevant and why? Fully explain your
response explicitly incorporating material from his article. (25 points)
2. Does Burns Weston’s concept of a “methodology of respect” (Weston, “The
Universality of Human Rights in a Multicultural World”) offer a possible solution
to the apparent tension between universal and relative human rights? Fully
explain your response incorporating explicit elements of his argument. (25
points)
The Relative Universality of Human Rights
Donnelly, Jack.
Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 29, Number 2, May 2007, pp.
281-306 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.2007.0016
For additional information about this article
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hrq/summary/v029/29.2donnelly.html
Access Provided by University of Michigan @ Ann Arbor at 08/25/10 2:20PM GMT
HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
The Relative Universality of
Human Rights
Jack Donnelly*
Abstract
Human rights as an international political project are closely tied to claims
of universality. Attacks on the universality of human rights, however, are
also widespread. And some versions of universalism are indeed theoretically indefensible, politically pernicious, or both. This essay explores the
senses in which human rights can (and cannot) be said to be universal, the
senses in which they are (and are not) relative, and argues for the “relative
universality” of internationally recognized human rights.
Introduction
This essay explores several different senses of “universal” human rights. I also
consider, somewhat more briefly, several senses in which it might be held
that human rights are “relative.” I defend what I call functional, international
legal, and overlapping consensus universality. But I argue that what I call
anthropological and ontological universality are empirically, philosophically,
or politically indefensible. I also emphasize that universal human rights,
properly understood, leave considerable space for national, regional, cultural
particularity and other forms of diversity and relativity.
* Jack Donnelly is the Andrew Mellon Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver.
The tone of this essay owes much to a long conversation with Daniel Bell and Joseph
Chan in Japan nearly a decade ago. I thank them for the sort of deep engagement of fundamental differences that represents one of the best and most exhilarating features of intellectual
life. I also thank audiences at Yonsei University, Ritsumeikan University, and Occidental
College, where earlier versions of this paper were presented, and more than two decades
of students who have constantly pushed me to clarify, sharpen, and properly modulate my
arguments.
Human Rights Quarterly 29 (2007) 281–306 © 2007 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
282
HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
Vol. 29
Cultural relativism has probably been the most discussed issue in the
theory of human rights. Certainly that is true in this journal. I have been an
active participant in these debates for a quarter century, arguing for a form of
universalism that also allows substantial space for important (second order)
claims of relativism.1 I continue to insist on what I call the “relative universality” of human rights. Here, however, I give somewhat more emphasis to
the limits of the universal.
In the 1980s, when vicious dictators regularly appealed to culture to
justify their depredations, a heavy, perhaps even over-heavy, emphasis on
universalism seemed not merely appropriate but essential. Today, human
rights are backed by the world’s preponderant political, economic, and
cultural powers and have become ideologically hegemonic in international
society. Not only do few states today directly challenge international human rights, a surprisingly small number even seriously contend that large
portions of the Universal Declaration do not apply to them. An account that
gives somewhat greater emphasis to the limits of universalism thus seems
called for, especially now that American foreign policy regularly appeals
to “universal” values in the pursuit of a global ideological war that flouts
international legal norms.
1. Conceptual and Substantive Universality
We can begin by distinguishing the conceptual universality implied by the
very idea of human rights from substantive universality, the universality of
a particular conception or list of human rights. Human rights, following the
manifest literal sense of the term, are ordinarily understood to be the rights
that one has simply because one is human. As such, they are equal rights,
because we either are or are not human beings, equally. Human rights are
also inalienable rights, because being or not being human usually is seen
as an inalterable fact of nature, not something that is either earned or can
1.
Jack Donnelly, Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique of Non-Western Human Rights Conceptions, 76 Am. Pol. Science Rev. 303–16 (1982); Jack Donnelly,
Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights, 6 Hum. Rts. Q. 400 (1984); Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1989);
Jack Donnelly, Traditional Values and Universal Human Rights: Caste in India, in Asian
Perspectives on Human Rights (Claude E. Welch, Jr. & Virginia A. Leary 1990); Jack Donnelly, Post-Cold War Reflections on International Human Rights, 8 Ethics & Int’l Aff. 97
(1994); Jack Donnelly, Conversing with Straw Men While Ignoring Dictators: A Reply to
Roger Ames, 11 Ethics & Int’l Aff. 207 (1997); Jack Donnelly, Human Rights and Asian
Values: A Defense of “Western” Universalism, in The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights
(Joanne R. Bauer & Daniel A. Bell eds. 1999); Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in
Theory and Practice (2d ed. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2003); Rhoda E. Howard & Jack
Donnelly, Human Dignity, Human Rights and Political Regimes, 80 Am. Pol. Science Rev.
801 (1986).
2007
The Relative Universality of Human Rights
283
be lost. Human rights are thus “universal” rights in the sense that they are
held “universally” by all human beings. Conceptual universality is in effect
just another way of saying that human rights are, by definition, equal and
inalienable.
Conceptual universality, however, establishes only that if there are any
such rights, they are held equally/universally by all. It does not show that
there are any such rights. Conceptually universal human rights may be so
few in number or specified at such a high level of abstraction that they are
of little practical consequence. And conceptual universality says nothing
about the central question in most contemporary discussions of universality, namely, whether the rights recognized in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and the International Human Rights Covenants are universal.
This is a substantive question. It will be our focus here.
2. Universal Possession Not Universal Enforcement
Defensible claims of universality, whether conceptual or substantive, are
about the rights that we have as human beings. Whether everyone, or even
anyone, enjoys these rights is another matter. In far too many countries today
the state not only actively refuses to implement, but grossly and systematically
violates, most internationally recognized human rights. And in all countries,
significant violations of at least some human rights occur daily, although
which rights are violated, and with what severity, varies dramatically.
The global human rights regime relies on national implementation of
internationally recognized human rights. Norm creation has been internationalized. Enforcement of authoritative international human rights norms,
however, is left almost entirely to sovereign states. The few and limited
exceptions—most notably genocide, crimes against humanity, certain war
crimes, and perhaps torture and arbitrary execution—only underscore the
almost complete sovereign authority of states to implement human rights in
their territories as they see fit.
Except in the European regional regime, supranational supervisory bodies
are largely restricted to monitoring how states implement their international
human rights obligations. Transnational human rights NGOs and other
national and international advocates engage in largely persuasive activity,
aimed at changing the human rights practices of states. Foreign states are
free to raise human rights violations as an issue of concern but have no
authority to implement or enforce human rights within another state’s sovereign jurisdiction. The implementation and enforcement of universally held
human rights thus is extremely relative, largely a function of where one has
the (good or bad) fortune to live.
284
HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
Vol. 29
3. Historical or Anthropological Universality2
Human rights are often held to be universal in the sense that most societies
and cultures have practiced human rights throughout most of their history.
“All societies cross-culturally and historically manifest conceptions of human
rights.”3 This has generated a large body of literature on so-called non-western
conceptions of human rights. “In almost all contemporary Arab literature on
this subject [human rights], we find a listing of the basic rights established
by modern conventions and declarations, and then a serious attempt to trace
them back to Koranic texts.”4 “It is not often remembered that traditional
African societies supported and practiced human rights.”5 “Protection of human rights is an integral part” of the traditions of Asian societies.6 “All the
countries [of the Asian region] would agree that ‘human rights’ as a concept
existed in their tradition.”7 Even the Hindu caste system has been described
as a “traditional, multidimensional view[s] of human rights.”8
Such claims to historical or anthropological universality confuse values
such as justice, fairness, and humanity need with practices that aim to realize those values. Rights—entitlements that ground claims with a special
force—are a particular kind of social practice. Human rights—equal and
inalienable entitlements of all individuals that may be exercised against
the state and society—are a distinctive way to seek to realize social values
such as justice and human flourishing. There may be considerable historical/anthropological universality of values across time and culture. No
society, civilization, or culture prior to the seventeenth century, however,
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
This section draws directly from and summarizes Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in
Theory and Practice (2d ed.), supra note 1, at ch. 5.
Adamantia Pollis & Peter Schwab, Human Rights: A Western Construct with Limited
Applicability, in Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological Perspectives 1, 15 (Adamantia
Pollis & Peter Schwab eds., 1979); compare Makau Mutua, The Banjul Charter and
the African Cultural Fingerprint: An Evaluation of the Language of Duties, 35 Virgina J.
Int’l L. 339, at 358 (1995); David R. Penna & Patricia J. Campbell, Human Rights and
Culture: Beyond Universality and Relativism, 19 Third World Q. 7, at 21 (1998).
Fouad Zakaria, Human Rights in the Arab World: The Islamic Context, in Philosophical
Foundations of Human Rights 227, 228 (UNESCO ed., 1986).
Dunstan M. Wai, Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Human Rights: Cultural and
Ideological Perspectives 115, 116 (Adamantia Pollis & Peter Schwab eds., 1979).
Ibrahim Anwar, Special Address presented at the JUST International Conference: Rethinking Human Rights (7 Dec 1994) in Human Wrongs 277 (1994).
Radhika Coomaraswamy, Human Rights Research and Education: An Asian Perspective,
in International Congress on the Teaching of Human Rights: Working Documents and Recommendations 224 (UNESCO ed., 1980).
Ralph Buultjens, Human Rights in Indian Political Culture, in The Moral Imperatives of
Human Rights: A World Survey 109, 113 (Kenneth W. Thompson ed., 1980); compare
Yougindra Khushalani, Human Rights in Asia and Africa, 4 Hum. Rts. L. J. 403, 408
(1983); Max L. Stackhouse, Creeds, Society, and Human Rights: A Study in Three Cultures
(1984).
2007
The Relative Universality of Human Rights
285
had a widely endorsed practice, or even vision, of equal and inalienable
individual human rights.9
For example, Dunstan Wai argues that traditional African beliefs and
institutions “sustained the ‘view that certain rights should be upheld against
alleged necessities of state.’”10 This confuses human rights with limited government.11 Government has been limited on a variety of grounds other than
human rights, including divine commandment, legal rights, and extralegal
checks such as a balance of power or the threat of popular revolt.
“[T]he concept of human rights concerns the relationship between the
individual and the state; it involves the status, claims, and duties of the former
in the jurisdiction of the latter. As such, it is a subject as old as politics.”12
Not all political relationships, however, are governed by, related to, or even
consistent with, human rights. What the state owes those it rules is indeed
a perennial question of politics. Human rights provide one answer. Other
answers include divine right monarchy, the dictatorship of the proletariat,
the principle of utility, aristocracy, theocracy, and democracy.
“[D]ifferent civilizations or societies have different conceptions of human well-being. Hence, they have a different attitude toward human rights
issues.”13 Even this is misleading. Other societies may have (similar or different) attitudes toward issues that we consider today to be matters of human
rights. But without a widely understood concept of human rights endorsed
or advocated by some important segment of that society, it is hard to imagine
that they could have any attitude toward human rights. And it is precisely
the idea of equal and inalienable rights that one has simply because one
is a human being that was missing not only in traditional Asian, African,
Islamic, but in traditional Western, societies as well.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
For detailed support for this claim, see Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and
Practice (2d ed.), supra note 1, at ch. 5; Rhoda E. Howard, Human Rights in Commonwealth
Africa, at ch. 2(1986).
Wai, supra note 5, at 116.
Compare Asmarom Legesse, Human Rights in African Political Culture, in The Moral
Imperatives of Human Rights: A World Survey 123, 125–27 (Kenneth W. Thompson ed.,
1980); Nana Kusi Appea Busia, Jr., The Status of Human Rights in Pre-Colonial Africa:
Implications for Contemporary Practices, in Africa, Human Rights, and the Global System:
The Political Economy of Human Rights in a Changing World 225, 231 (Eileen McCarthyArnolds, David R. Penna, & Debra Joy Cruz Sobrepeña eds., 1994); for non-African
examples, Abdul Aziz Said, Precept and Practice of Human Rights in Islam, 1 Universal
Hum. Rts. 63, 65 (1979); Raul Manglapus, Human Rights are Not a Western Discovery,
4 Worldview (1978); Adamantia Pollis & Peter Schwab, Introduction, in Human Rights:
Cultural and Ideological Perspectives xiii, xiv (Adamantia Pollis & Peter Schwab eds.,
1979).
Hung-Chao Tai, Human Rights in Taiwan: Convergence of Two Political Cultures?, in
Human Rights in East Asia: A Cultural Perspective 77, 79 (James C. Hsiung ed., 1985).
Manwoo Lee, North Korea and the Western Notion of Human Rights, in Human Rights
in East Asia: A Cultural Perspective 129, 131 (James C. Hsiung ed., 1985).
286
HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
Vol. 29
The ancient Greeks notoriously distinguished between Hellenes and
barbarians, practiced slavery, denied basic rights to foreigners, and (by our
standards) severely restricted the rights of even free adult (male) citizens.
The idea that all human beings had equal and inalienable basic rights was
equally foreign to Athens and Sparta, Plato and Aristotle, Homer, Hesiod,
Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Thucydides. Much the same is true
of ancient Rome, both as a republic and as an empire. In medieval Europe,
where the spiritual egalitarianism and universality of Christianity expressed
itself in deeply inegalitarian politics, the idea of equal legal and political rights
for all human beings, had it been seriously contemplated, would have been
seen as a moral abomination, a horrid transgression against God’s order.
In the “pre-modern” world, both Western and non-Western alike, the
duty of rulers to further the common good arose not from the rights (entitlements) of all human beings, or even all subjects, but from divine commandment, natural law, tradition, or contingent political arrangements. The people
could legitimately expect to benefit from the obligations of their rulers to
rule justly. Neither in theory nor in practice, though, did they have human
rights that could be exercised against unjust rulers. The reigning ideas were
natural law and natural right (in the sense of righteousness or rectitude) not
natural or human rights (in the sense of equal and inalienable individual
entitlements).
Many arguments of anthropological universality are inspired by an
admirable desire to show cultural sensitivity and respect. In fact they do no
such thing. Rather, they misunderstand and misrepresent the foundations
and functioning of the societies in question by anachronistically imposing
an alien analytical framework.
I am not claiming that Islam, Confucianism, or traditional African ideas
cannot support internationally re …
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