Culture and Context in Human Rights (original) (raw)

Notwithstanding their European origins, human rights today represent the universal language in which global relations can be normatively regulated. In Asia, Africa, and South America, they constitute the sole language in which the opponents and victims of murderous regimes and civil wars can raise their voices against violence, repression, and persecution, and against violations of their human dignity. But as human rights have won acceptance as a transcultural language, disagreements between cultures over their proper interpretation have also intensified. Insofar as this intercultural discourse on human rights is conducted in a spirit of reciprocal recognition, it can also lead the West to a decentered understanding of a normative construction that is no longer the property of Europeans and may no longer exclusively reflect the particularities of this one culture" (Habermas, 2006; p. 155).