Can human rights be universal in their application? Wish me luck!
A page in the diary "A Day in the Life Of..."
Written by babz 18. May 2008 09:27 PM
That is the essay question that is currently making my head explode. It's due tomorrow, and I've done heaps of work on it, but keep getting stuck because I'm writing as if the question were 'ARE human rights universal in their application' not 'CAN human rights be universal in their application'. Well, yes, they CAN be, ANYTHING is possible, just not particularly probable.
My current tact is explaining that HR clearly aren't universal in their application at the present time, and in order to determine whether they CAN be we need to understand why they aren't being applied at the moment.
Then I'm going to attempt to launch into an explanation of the universalism (the rights have to be universal otherwise they will not work) versus cultural relativism (that rights need to take into account culture, religion, history, etc.) debate, only to point out the flaws in each of the arguments.
Then this leads into the fact that neither of these two sides have accepted that universal application doesn't necessarily mean uniform application, and that it IS possible to have universal human rights - meaning that all the rights themselves are universally applied, but the result of the application varies according to cultural/religious/geographic/ect. context.
And the problem is that that whole essay outline probably makes about as much sense to most of you as it does to me - and I have until 5pm tomorrow to write it. AND I have to catch public transport to hand it in cause my car is having an attack of the grumpies. Here come the caffeine pills!
I have all my research/references, I just have to get my head around it and write the damn thing. And write up my reference list and all the citations which is a pain in the ass and takes FOREVER!!!
Wish me luck...... And Gyps, once I have this piece of creative writing out of the way, I'll get your prayer written :P