Toward an intercivilizational approach to human rights

1. Toward an intercivilizational approach to human rights ONUMA YASUAKI

2. About the author Prof. ONUMA YASUAKI 大沼保昭

3. International debates of human rights • Universal or culturally relative. • Economic development before realization of human rights, or pursue in tandem. • Civil and political rights, economic and social rights , which deserve greater priority.

4. Factors affect the debates • There has been a steady increase in the significance of human rights in the US in recent decades. • The end of the Cold War opened a more serious path to the treatment of various non-security issues.

5. West-centric perspectives • Lack of understanding of the psychological legacy of imperialism and colonial rule ─ Human rights or Interventionist policies? ─ Human rights activists represent the will of the people as a whole? ─ Chinese Communist Party, Vietnamese Communist Party, different from socialist regimes in Eastern Europe.

6. Lack of Self-criticism ─ East Asian nations such as Japan and Singapore. ─ the developed, rights-oriented and individualistic West. ─ the underdeveloped, non-legalistic and collectivist non-West.

7. West-centric universalism • Human rights were solely of European origin? ─ 1. there is a naive interest among Western intellectuals in whether Western ideas and practices also existed in non-Western societies. ─ 2. one should consider various unfavorable factors surrounding intellectuals or human rights advocates in many non-Western societies.

8. ─3. several non-Western intellectuals are critical of the view that anything good or desirable in human history originated in the West. ─4. there is an element of guilt on the part of certain intellectuals in developed countries.

9. Civil and political rights ─Centism

10. World Human Rights Guide ─ by Charles Humana • The degree of protection of rights • “Human rights are the laws, customs, and practices that have evolved over the centuries to protect ordinary people, minorities, groups, and races from oppressive rulers and governments.”

11. An intercivilizational perspective on human rights · The terms ─ “culture” and “civilization” ─ “ international” and “intercivilizational” · The need for dialogue ─ previous studies. ─ cultures or religions “living” in peoples’s ordinary lives.

12. The Relative Universality of Human RightsJack Donnelly

13. The Relative Universality of Human Rights • A: a variety of senses of “universality” (1-8) • B: different senses of “relativity” (9-11) • C: (12-14)

14. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 1. Conceptual and substantive universality • Distinguishing conceptual universality from substantive universality • Human rights: one has as a human- equal + inalienable ∴human rights are universal rights

15. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 2. Universal possession not universal enforcement • Current situation of human rights- refusals to implement; violations of the human rights • The global human rights regime relies on national implement of internationally recognized human rights. - norm creation- enforcement->sovereign states • The case of EU- monitoring

16. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 3. Historical or anthropological universality • “all societies cross-culturally and historically manifest conceptions of human rights” “Non-western conceptions of human rights” • Neither in theory nor in practice, did the people have human rights that could be exercised against unjust rulers.

17. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 4. functional universality • Human rights ideas and practices modernity • Human rights represent the most effective response yet devised to a wide range of standard threats to human dignity that market economics and bureaucratic states have made nearly universal across the globe.

18. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 5. International legal universality • The universal declaration of human rights • a precondiction of full political legitimacy. • The limitation-> contingent and relative It depends on states deciding to treat the universal declaration and the covenants as authoritative.

19. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 6. overlapping consensus universality • John Rawls: Comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrines VS political conceptions of justice • Adherents of different comprehensive doctrines may be able to reach an “overlapping consensus” on a political conception of justice. –diverse international society

20. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 7. voluntary or coerced consensus? • The transnational consensus on the Universal Declaration arises from the largely voluntary decisions of people, states, and other political actors. ∴ we should talk more of the relative universality of human rights, rather than their relative universality.

21. A: a variety of senses of “universality” • 8. ontological universality • 3 problems: • Whether values are objectively valid • historically ignored or actively denied human rights. • Lack of much stronger arguments to support the ontological universality of human rights

22. B: different senses of “relativity” • 9. cultural relativism •  methodological cultural relativism; Substantive cultural relativism • 6 problems- misplaced universalism

23. B: different senses of “relativity” • 10.self-determination and sovereignty • A tolerant relativism based on the mutual recognition of peoples/states in an international community • Self determination ≠ legal sovereignty - Justice VS order

24. B: different senses of “relativity” • 11. post-structural, post colonial, and critical arguments • Similar to cultural relativist arguments “anti-universality” “neo-imperial arguments ” - Lack of critical self-reflection

25. C: • 12. justifying particularity: universal rights, not identical practices •  4 criteria • 13. Two illustrations •  prohibition of apostasy by Muslims •  American practice with respect to hate speech • 14. universalism without imperialism •  American interest ≠ universal values

26. Conclusion • The intercivilizational approach characterizes human rights as an extremely means of realizing the spiritual and material well-being of humanity. - Onuma • The relative universality of human rights is a powerful resource that can be used to help to build more justice and humane national and international societies.  - Donnelly