HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH THE LENS OF CULTURAL PARTICULARITIES: WHAT ALTERNATIVE? Cover Image

LES DROITS HUMAINS AU PRISME DES PARTICULARISMES CULTURELS : QUELLE ALTERNATIVE ?
HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH THE LENS OF CULTURAL PARTICULARITIES: WHAT ALTERNATIVE?

Author(s): Essodina Bamaze N’Gani
Subject(s): Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Ethics / Practical Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Contemporary Philosophy
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: Human rights; universality; cultural particularism; excisions; ineffectiveness; translation; rootedness;

Summary/Abstract: Human Rights through the Lens of Cultural Particularities: What Alternative? While the proclaimed universality of human rights is a guarantee of security and protection for every human being, its implementation faces several cultural roadblocks. This paper clearly posits that the transcendent aspect of universality creates legal foreignness. We postulate that this foreignness is the source of particularistic hatred against the universality of human rights. In the light of this hypothesis, which is illustrated by excisions, this study recommends a translation of the universal language of human rights into local cultural contexts. Such a translation constitutes an effective antidote to any particularistic approach, because we believe that it creates space for shared responsibility towards universality. In this regard, this paper intends to rethink the very foundation of the universality of human rights as rooted in order to eventually demonstrates the relevance of its translation into local cultural contexts. The transcendent vision of human rights (and law in general) is therefore complemented by their taking root perception by the societies they seek to govern. Otherwise, these rights will always be perceived as extraneous values at the endogenous level of cultures. Hence their ineffectiveness.

  • Issue Year: 67/2022
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 159-186
  • Page Count: 28
  • Language: French