Cultural pluralism and the idea of human rights
pp. 235-249
in: Arend Soeteman (ed), Pluralism and law, Berlin, Springer, 2001Abstract
The plurality of cultures appears to be a problem for the idea of human rights which creates doubts as to whether human rights can serve as a universal standard of a global order. The philosophical foundation of human rights needs to clarify to what extent universal claims of human rights can be justified. This is pursued here on the basis of a model of principles the core of which consists of the weighing and balancing of competing normative claims. It turns out that for some aspects of human rights universal validity can be claimed but in other respects human rights conceptions are sensitive to cultural diversity.