Relativism, self-determination and human rights

Efforts to establish and enforce universal human rights have often been resisted by advocates of some form of relativism. The Asian values argument, for example, poses a relativist challenge to any international human rights agenda that includes individual liberties and democratic institutions (see Bauer and Bell 1999). Such challenges have led many to see current controversies about human rights as rooted in a fundamental conflict between moral relativism and moral universalism. The aim of this essay is to suggest a particular resolution of this conflict, one that does not sacrifice either the universality of fundamental human rights or the respect for and tolerance of diversity sought by those who advocate relativism. It sees respect for national self-determination as interacting with respect for universal human rights to produce a doctrine of accommodation. the final section we apply our position to the human right to democratic institutions (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1996, Article 25). Developments in the field of human rights since the end of the Cold War suggest that the idea of a relativist challenge to human rights is now out of date. As Anne Bayefsky writes, Every UN member state is a party to one or of the six major human rights treaties. 80% of states have ratified four or more (Bayefsky 2001: xiii). Further, all countries now use similar political institutions (e.g., bureaucratic government, law, courts, police, prisons, taxation, public schools, military forces) and these institutions carry with them similar problems and abuses (Donnelly 1999). Beyond this, the banner of cultural relativism is often carried by states with extremely bad human rights records and this gives the idea itself a bad odor (Bayefsky 1996). We suggest, however, that these developments have changed the nature of the relativist challenge without making it obsolete. If the challenge was once, Is the very idea of universal human rights plausible in light of cultural and political diversity?, perhaps it is now changed to In spite of their amazing successes in finding acceptance around the world, do lists of human rights still need to be understood and interpreted in ways that allow governments to accommodate local self-understandings, traditions, problems, and financial and institutional resources?