[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Human Rights
Most of us seem to agree that the contextual cultural approach is the appropriate means by which to promote universal recognition of the concept of human rights. Some people, however, think that this approach actually retards the evolution of international standards. They argue that the cultural approach fosters a relativism that is opposed to universalism, whether it is because of a sincere commitment to local cultures and traditions or a purposeful manipulative effort to justify violations of human rights at the local or national level. Whatever the case, it is nearly always the elite who interpret the culture and use it or abuse it for their own political ends.
Those who fall victim to such abuse can hardly be expected to reject international human rights standards by invoking local cultures. However, local cultural values can indeed be invoked to check the leaders who violate human rights and seek shelter behind cultural relativism (F. K. Abiew, 1999).The activists of human rights say that they would like to see the countries of the world adopt international standards for the protection of human rights.
The problem is that most of them have mixed feelings about the proper role of the various cultural traditions in this regard, largely because they feel that the assertiveness of these traditions acts as a force that casts doubt on the universal validity of international standards. Oftentimes, the objection is not so much to universalism as it is to the Western character of the international standards, which has led some people to question "the universality of those norms and their suitability for application in non-Western cultures." (K. Hochstetler, A. M. Clark, and E. J. Friedman, 2000). Another important point, that even though many Muslim countries are signatories to the international human rights conventions (which means they formally acknowledge the international human rights standards), other Muslim countries reject them on religious grounds......
