Western Human Rights in a Diverse World: Cultural Suppression or Relativism?

Clancy Wright

E-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Apr 25 2014

This content was written by a student and assessed as part of a university degree. E-IR publishes student essays & dissertations to allow our readers to broaden their understanding of what is possible when answering similar questions in their own studies.

The Western cultural construct of human rights provides inherent and inalienable rights to all, regardless of culture and tradition. Non-Western cultures do restrict the application of human rights, but only when these rights culturally and traditionally breach the rights of their members. These cultural traditions, such as Sharia law and female circumcision, challenge the cultural foundations of human rights by providing alternative means of understanding the individual and their role in the broader community. As such, cultural relativists who support each culture’s right to variation, even if it grossly abuses the rights of its members, are wrong to suggest human rights is a form of cultural imperialism. Human rights provide a means of enabling all of humanity with inalienable rights without regard to differences or cultural traditions, and as such international human rights law is almost universally supported by states.

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