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Why Human Rights Are Universal
“Human rights are a Western idea that does not fit our culture.” This claim is often made by those in power. Here is why it is wrong — and who it really protects.
Whenever human rights are raised in Afghanistan, Iran or many other countries, one answer is heard again and again: these are Western values, imposed from outside, and they do not fit our religion or culture. The argument sounds like a defence of local identity. In practice, it is almost always made by those who hold power — and almost never by those who suffer under it.
Not a Western Invention
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948, with no country voting against it. It was drafted by people from many traditions. Among them were Peng Chun Chang of China, who brought Confucian ideas into the discussion, Charles Malik of Lebanon, and Hansa Mehta of India, who is credited with changing the phrase “all men are born free and equal” to “all human beings are born free and equal”. Afghanistan was among the countries that voted in favour.
Many of the ideas behind human rights — that rulers must be just, that the weak deserve protection, that each person has dignity — appear in philosophies and religious traditions across the world. What the declaration did was state them clearly and apply them to everyone.
The Problem with Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism holds that values are created by cultures and that no culture can judge another. It contains a true insight: we should be humble, avoid arrogance and understand the context of other societies. But as a theory of rights, it fails, for three reasons:
- Cultures are not single voices. Within every culture there are disagreements. When an Afghan girl wants to go to school and her government forbids it, which one represents “Afghan culture”?
- It protects the powerful. Those who define “our culture” are usually rulers, clerics and older men — the very people who benefit from the status quo.
- It cannot explain progress. If every culture’s values are equally valid, then ending slavery or child marriage was not an improvement, merely a change.
Ask the person whose rights are being denied whether human rights are a foreign idea. The answer is rarely yes.
What Makes Rights Universal
Human rights are universal because the things they protect are universal. Every human being can feel pain and fear; every human being can think, learn and love; every human being can be imprisoned, silenced or humiliated. The right not to be tortured does not depend on nationality. The desire to learn is not Western. A mother’s wish for her daughter to be safe and educated is the same in Kabul as in Melbourne.
International agreements have repeatedly affirmed this. The 1993 Vienna Declaration, adopted by representatives of states from every region, stated that all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent.
When Religion Is Used Against Rights
Some states have proposed alternative declarations that place human rights beneath religious law. The problem is clear: if rights can be overridden by a particular interpretation of scripture, they are no longer rights at all — they are permissions, granted or withdrawn by those who control interpretation. Universal rights exist precisely to protect individuals from such power, including power exercised in the name of God.
Conclusion
Respecting other cultures matters. But respect for culture can never mean accepting the oppression of women, minorities or dissenters within it. Human rights belong to people, not to governments, traditions or religions. That is what makes them universal — and that is why they are worth defending everywhere.
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