Are human rights universal?
Ben Tudor
What are human rights?
Human rights are things that people are entitled to, and that the state is obliged to provide to its people, whether or not these rights are actually fulfilled. Almost all western definitions of human rights have described them as being universal and inalienable. It has been a tradition passed down from the classical era, to the renaissance to the modern day – but perhaps this common conception of them as being inalienable is old fashioned? The main attempt at putting into writing and law what had previously just been guided by morality was in 1948 with the universal declaration of human rights (UDHR) by the United Nations (UN). I will be taking the UDHR to be what most western cultures believe to be human rights, and it certainly states that every state should have equal obligations to every individual on the planet: ‘Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.’ I will not define what a human right as this is simply an impossible task, but I hope that the rest of this essay will help you make your own conclusion on this matter. The very fact that the definition of human rights is hard to define stumbles across a very important point regarding their universality – is it possible to define everyone’s moral conscience in a list of universal rules? The fundamental origin of these rights is clearly necessary to ascertain in order to find out whether or not they are universal. A common stance is that these rights emerge from natural law – a kind of list of behaviours defined by human nature. It is from these behaviours that one can extract ‘natural rights’ – for example, in our natural state, possibly because of evolution, nobody wants to be killed. Because of this, killing contravenes natural law and therefore all humans have an inherent right not to be killed, in a land where society doesn’t exist. Locke strongly believed that rights come from natural law. He described it like this: A state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they see fit, within the bounds of the laws of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man. A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection.... The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.... ( Second Treatise of Government 1690) I, however, have an issue with the term ‘inherent right’ – the very nature of rights means that they arise from human interaction, and so are not something that can be inherent. There are even problems with the idea that no-one wants to be killed. While this may be generally true, it does not explain why Why do we have human rights?
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