Universality of Human Rights

A Bangladeshi construction worker in Navi Mumbai, a Gujarati diamond trader in Antwerp and a Norwegian student in Oslo are very different people under very different governments. Do they all hold the same basic rights? If you answer yes, what if the worker’s village, the trader’s community or a government in Oslo or Delhi says its own culture sees things differently? This topic asks whether human rights truly belong to everyone everywhere, or whether the claim is a polite form of cultural pressure. The answer has to be argued, and Indian law gives you good material for both sides.

In two minutes

Universality means every human being holds the same basic rights wherever they live, whoever they are; the claim is supported by the UDHR 1948 and the Vienna Declaration 1993, and challenged by cultural relativists who say rights must be read through local culture, religion and development.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Human Rights Law on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.