Human Rights Theory Of Universality And Particularity

Struggle for fully entitled human rights has been an eternal theme in human history. From the time when human rights come into being, all kinds of research and argument about them never stop. As the disaster and humiliation brought by the Second World War caused reflection of the universe, humans gradually come to the common view of setting up humanistic legal order and the protecting system of international human rights. However, the process of setting up never goes smoothly as the debate over universality and particularity has become the great hindrance. The universality of human rights, recorded in a series of international human rights codes, has been already fully testified by the practice of human rights. However, as countries greatly differ from each other in social system, economic development, historical and cultural traditions and other aspects, contradiction, or even conflicts occur between the universality of human rights and the practice of human rights in countries. The society has developed different cultures. In the world where different cultures exist, how to set up the transnational and culturally empathy sense of the universality of human to be recognized all around the world and to be combined with the practice of human rights has become an urgent problem for the human society.This thesis includes5parts. The first two parts analyze the universality and particularity of human rights on the origins, bases, and intent. These two parts come into the conclusion that the universality and particularity of human rights both should be valued because the common personal rights which are threatened by national power are the same in dignity and ethics but are different only in the ways of protection determined by varied economic and political system in different countries and nations. The third part introduces the debate over universality and particularity. It points out that varied interpretations for the concept and bases of human rights make the ignorance of the basic value and spirit of human rights which further leads to the overlook of the relationship between human rights and civilization and reasons against the universality of human rights. Thus, the contradiction between the universality and particularity come into being. The fourth part points out that the universality, as the basic aspect of human rights and the particularity should not be divided and be contrasted. The fourth part also criticizes human rights relativism which aiming at repudiating the universality with particularity. The last part intends to find out a most practicable method which is the cultural integration of ideas of human rights. According to this method, the traditional ideas of human rights will be recovered and some specific elements will be adjusted to specific cultures in order that the protecting system of international human rights is achieved on the bases that the universality of human rights is fulfilled and the protection of human rights in different nations become flourishing.