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The
on
Attack
Human
Rights
Michael
FROM
WITHIN
Ignatieff
AND
WITHOUT
a source of power
language has become
invites challenge. Human
and authority.
power
Inevitably,
rights
in
doctrine
is now so powerful, but also so unthinkingly
imperialist
to
its claim
that it has exposed
itself to serious
universality,
1945, human
Since
rights
challenges have raised important questions
about whether
human rights norms deserve the authority they have
or whether
are
their claims to universality
justified,
acquired: whether
are
moral imperialism.
just another cunning exercise inWestern
they
to
of human rights arises
the universality
The cultural challenge
the
from three distinct sources?from
resurgent Islam, from within
West
itself, and from East Asia. Each of these challenges is independent
intellectual
attack. These
of the others, but taken together, they have raised substantial questions
hence
the legitimacy?of
about the cross-cultural
validity?and
human
rights
norms.
from Islam has been there from the beginning.
challenge
was
Declaration
of Human
the Universal
When
being
Rights
drafted in 1947, the Saudi Arabian delegation raised particular objection
to
toArticle 16,
to free
relating
marriage choice, and Article 18, relating
of marriage,
the Saudi dele
freedom of religion. On the question
The
gate
to the committee
examining
the draft of the declaration
made
isDirector
of the Carr Center for Human Rights
Ignatieff
atHarvard University.
at the Kennedy
This essay
School of Government
as Politics and
is adapted from his latest book, Human
Idolatry,
Rights
2001
Press.
Princeton
?
University
by
Copyright
Michael
[102]
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The Attack
an argument that has resonated
Western
human rights, saying
onHuman
Rights
ever since in Islamic
encounters
with
that
the authors of the draft declaration had, for the most part, taken into
consideration only the standards recognized byWestern
civilization
and had ignored more ancient civilizations which were past the exper
imental stage, and the institutions of which, for example, marriage, had
proved theirwisdom through the centuries. Itwas not for the Committee
to proclaim the superiority of one civilization over all others or to establish
uniform
standards
This was
a defense
for all the countries
of the world.
of both
the Islamic faith and patriarchal
authority.
in effect argued that the
The Saudi delegate
exchange and control of
women
is the very raison d'?tre of traditional cultures, and that the
restriction of female choice in marriage
is central to the maintenance
of patriarchal property relations. On the basis of these
to
objections
Articles 16 and 18, the Saudi delegation refused to
ratify the declaration.
There have been recurrent attempts,
including Islamic declarations
to
of human
reconcile
Islamic and Western
traditions by
rights,
more
on
and
putting
emphasis
family duty and religious devotion
on
Islamic traditions of religious and ethnic
by drawing
distinctively
tolerance. But these attempts at fusion between the Islamic world and
theWest
have never been entirely successful: agreement
by the parties
to
trades
is
what
vital
consensus
each
side.
The
away
actually
resulting
is bland and unconvincing.
Since the 1970s the relation of Islam to human
rights has grown
more hostile. When
the Islamic Revolution
in Iran rose up against
the tyrannical modernization
imposed by the shah, Islamic figures
to
human rights norms.
began
question the universal writ ofWestern
out
have
that
the
Western
They
pointed
separation of church and
of
secular
and
to the
is
alien
state,
religious authority,
jurisprudence
and political thought of the Islamic tradition. And
are correct.
they
The freedoms
in the Universal
articulated
Declaration
of Human
no sense within
the theocratic bias of Islamic
Rights make
political
to
a
The
to
and
establish
marry
thought.
right
family,
freely choose
one's partner, is a direct
to the authorities
in Islamic society
challenge
that enforce the family choice of spouse,
polygamy, and other restrictions
on women's
freedom. In Islamic eyes,
rights discourse
universalizing
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[ 10 3 ]
Michael Ignatieff
a
is blasphemous
individual, which
sovereign and discrete
implies
the
of
from
the Koran.
perspective
to this
In responding
theWest
has made the mistake of
challenge,
that fundamentalism
and Islam are synonymous.
But in
assuming
or theocratic
fact Islam speaks inmany voices, some more anti-Western
contexts may be more
in defining
than others. National
important
values than are broad theological
local Islamic reactions toWestern
in the religion as a whole. Where
Islamic societies have
principles
to modernize,
create a middle
class, and enter the global
managed
in
and Tunisia
being examples?a
constituency
economy?Egypt
favor of basic human rights can emerge. Egypt, for instance, is now
in the process of passing legislation to give women
the right to divorce,
and although dialogue with Egypt's
has been
religious authorities
enhanced by the new
difficult, women's
rights will be substantially
a secular human
more embattled.
legislation. In Algeria,
rights culture is
The governing
rode to power after a bloody anticolonial
elite, which
the country, faces an opposition,
led
revolution failed to modernize
that has taken an anti-Western,
anti-human
by Islamic militants,
where the state itself has collapsed
rights stance. And inAfghanistan,
the nation's decline,
the
and foreign arms transfers have aggravated
human rights standards. In these
Taliban explicitly rejects allWestern
instances, the critical variant is not Islam itself but the fateful course
ofWestern
policy and economic globalization.
A second challenge to the universality of human rights comes from
within
itself. For the last 20 years, an influential current in
theWest
in the words of the
Western
political opinion has been maintaining,
Pollis and Peter Schwab,
that human
scholars Adamantia
a twentieth
are a "Western construct of limited
rights
applicability,"
century fiction dependent on the rights traditions of the United States,
and France and therefore inapplicable in cultures
the United Kingdom,
radical
that do not share this historical
matrix
of liberal individualism.
current of thought has complicated
intellectual origins: the
Marxist
critique
critique of the rights of man, the anthropological
of the arrogance of late-nineteenth-century
bourgeois
imperialism,
This
of
pretensions
critique of the universalizing
come
together
thought. All of these tendencies have
as
in the
ofWestern
intellectual hegemony
expressed
and the postmodernist
Enlightenment
in a critique
[104]
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AFFAIRS
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The Attack
language
of human
cunning
ofWestern
onHuman
rights. Human
reason: no
direct
Rights
rights
longer
rule, the West
are seen as an exercise in the
the world
able to dominate
now masks
its own will to
through
imperial
power in the impartial, universalizing
language of human rights and
seeks to impose its own narrow agenda on a plethora of world cultures
of individuality,
self
that do not actually share theWest's
conception
relativism began as an
hood, agency, or freedom. This postmodernist
intellectual fashion onWestern
university campuses, but it has seeped
human rights practice, causing all activists to
slowly into Western
pause and consider the intellectual warrant for the universality
they
once
took for granted.
This challenge within has been amplified by a challenge from
human rights standards by some
the critique ofWestern
the
of East Asia. Whereas
leaders in the rising economies
political
can
to
in
human rights
be explained
Islamic challenge
part by the failure
the Asian
of Islamic societies to benefit from the global economy,
a
of the region's staggering economic success.
challenge is consequence
its
Because
robust economic
for example,
of Malaysia's
growth,
without:
ideas of democracy
enough to reject Western
and
and individual rights in favor of an Asian route to development
on authoritarian
route that
government
prosperity?a
depends
structures.
and authoritarian
family
leaders
feel confident
same can be said about
Singapore, which successfully synthesized
political authoritarianism with market capitalism. Singapore's Senior
Minister Lee Kuan Yew has been quoted as saying that Asians have "lit
tle doubt that a society with communitarian values where the interests of
over that of the individual suits them better than
society take precedence
The
the individualism of America."
often cite rising divorce
Singaporeans
to illustrate thatWestern
is
and crime rates in theWest
individualism
detrimental to the order necessary for the enjoyment of rights themselves.
An "Asian model" supposedly puts community and family ahead of
individual rights and order ahead of democracy and individual freedom.
In reality, of course, there is no single Asian model: each of these societies
in different ways, within different
has modernized
political traditions,
andwith differing degrees of political andmarket freedom. Yet it has
authoritarians
proven useful for Asian
to
civilizational challenge
the hegemony
FOREIGN
AFFAIRS
to argue that
they represent
ofWestern
models.
November/December2001
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[105]
a
Michael Ignatieff
TRADES
AND
COMPROMISES
it be conceded
at once that these three separate
Let
challenges
to the universality of human rights discourse?two
from without
and
one from within theWestern
tradition?have
had a productive
impact.
to
activists
their
have
forced
human
assumptions,
question
They
rights
to rethink the
to
of
their
and
realize
commitments,
history
just how
intercultural dialogue on rights questions becomes when
complicated
as
all cultures participate
equals.
of human rights have
defenders
But at the same time, Western
traded too much away. In the desire to find common ground with Islamic
and to purge their own discourse of the imperial
and Asian positions
defenders
critique, Western
legacies uncovered by the postmodernist
norms
the very universality
risk compromising
of human rights
they
own
to be defending.
also
risk
their
rewriting
history.
ought
They
at the
ones, were represented
traditions, not justWestern
Many
of Human Rights?for
example,
drafting of the Universal Declaration
Eastern Christian, Marxist, Hindu, Latin Amer
saw their
of the drafting committee
ican, and Islamic. The members
convictions but as an attempt
task not as a simple ratification ofWestern
to delimit a range of moral universals from within
their very different
This fact
backgrounds.
religious, political, ethnic, and philosophical
to explain why the document makes no reference to God in its
helps
delegations would have vetoed any such
preamble. The communist
the Chinese, Middle
traditions
could not have
and the competing
reference,
religious
on words that would make human
rights derive from human
agreed
common existence asGod's creatures. Hence
the secular ground
beings'
so much
is not a sign of European cultural domination
of the document
to make agreement
common denominator
as a
designed
pragmatic
across the range of
divergent cultural and political viewpoints.
possible
that Western
It remains
true, of course,
inspirations?and
role in the drafting of
the predominant
drafters?played
in 1947 was anything
Even
the document.
so, the drafters' mood
but triumphalist. They were aware, first of all, that the age of colonial
was
was at hand: Indian
proclaimed
independence
emancipation
the language of the declaration was being finalized. Although
while
endorse
the declaration
does not specifically
self-determination,
Western
[106]
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AFFAIRS-Volume
80 No.
6
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The Attack
onHuman
Rights
its drafters
clearly foresaw the coming tide of struggles for national
it does proclaim
the right of people to self
Because
independence.
it also concedes
and freedom of speech and religion,
government
the right of colonial peoples to construe moral universals in a language
rooted in their own traditions. Whatever
failings the drafters of the
declaration may be accused of, unexamined Western
triumphalism
is not one of them. Key drafters
such as
Ren? Cassin of France and John Humphrey Western
of Canada knew the knell had sounded on
two centuries
ofWestern
colonialism.
They also knew that the declaration was
not somuch
a
human
of
defenders
rights
have
traded tOOmuch
proclamation of the superiority
as an attempt to
civilization
away.
of European
salvage the remains of its Enlightenment
heritage from the barbarism
in full
of aworld war just concluded. The declaration was written
awareness
awareness
of Auschwitz
and dawning
A
of Kolyma.
consciousness
of European
savagery is built into the very language
of the declaration's
"Whereas disregard and contempt for
preamble:
human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged
the conscience
of mankind
..."
The declaration may still be a child of the Enlightenment,
but
it was written
when
faith in the Enlightenment
faced its deepest
crisis. In this sense, human rights norms are not so much a decla
as a
ration of the superiority
of European
civilization
warning
by
rest of the world
not
that
the
should
their
Europeans
reproduce
mistakes.
The chief of these was the idolatry of the nation-state,
to
them to
causing individuals
forget the higher law commanding
of this moral heritage
disobey
unjust orders. The abandonment
to collectivism,
of natural law and the surrender of individualism
to
the drafters believed,
led
the catastrophes
of Nazi and Stalinist
Unless
the
disastrous
of
collec
oppression.
heritage
European
tivism is kept in mind as the framing experience
in the drafting of
the declaration,
its individualism
will appear to be nothing more
than the ratification
ofWestern
In
bourgeois
capitalist prejudice.
fact, itwas much more: a studied attempt to reinvent the European
natural law tradition in order to safeguard individual agency
against
state.
the totalitarian
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[107]
Michael Ignatieff
THE
POWER
OF ONE
that the core of the declaration
is the
it is so reproached by non-Western
moral
It is this individualism
societies.
for which Western
activists have
become most
that it should be tempered by
believing
apologetic,
on
to the commu
social duties and responsibilities
greater emphasis
can recover universal
nity. Human
rights, it is argued,
appeal only if
bias and put greater emphasis on the
they soften their individualistic
communitarian
29, which
parts of the declaration,
especially Article
It remains
true,
individualism
therefore,
for which
in which
alone the
says that "everyone has duties to the community
is possible." This desire
free and full development
of his personality
to water down the individualism
of rights discourse
is driven by a
desire both to make human rights more palatable to less individualistic
world
cultures in the non-Western
and also to respond to disquiet
at the
communitarians
corrosive impact
supposedly
values onWestern
social cohesion.
are and misunder
But this tack mistakes what
rights actually
to millions
of people raised
stands why they have proven attractive
are
in non-Western
traditions. Rights
meaningful
only if they confer
on
are worth
entitlements
and immunities
individuals;
they
having
can be enforced
as the
institutions
if
such
against
only
family, the
they
remains true even when
the rights in
state, and the church. This
are collective or group
question
rights. Some of these group rights?
such as the right to speak your own language or practice your own
for the exercise of individual
essential preconditions
religion?are
a
to
not mean
rights. The right
speak
language of your choice will
if the language has died out. For this reason, group rights
very much
are needed to protect individual
rights. But the ultimate purpose and
not
is
the protection
of the group as such
of group rights
justification
it. Group
of the individuals who compose
but the protection
rights
must not be used to prevent an individual
to
for
example,
language,
to practice religion
from learning a second language. Group
rights
com
to leave a
should not cancel the right of individuals
religious
if they choose.
munity
a conflict
are
Rights
inescapably political because they tacitly imply
between a rights holder and a rights "withholder," some authority against
among Western
of individualistic
[108]
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Volume80No.
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TheAttack onHuman Rights
the rights holder can make justified claims. To confuse rights
and rights conventions with syncretic syntheses of
with aspirations,
to
world values, is wish away the conflicts that define the very content
of rights. Individuals and groups will always be in conflict, and rights
exist to protect individuals. Rights language cannot be parsed or trans
communitarian
lated into a nonindividualistic,
framework; it presumes
outside that assumption.
moral individualism and is nonsensical
which
it is precisely
this individualism
that renders human
Moreover,
to non-Western
rights attractive
peoples and explains why the fight
for those rights has become a global movement. The language of human
rights is the only universally available moral
vernacular that validates
the claims of
women
the oppression
and children
against
they experience in patriarchal and tribal
societies; it is the only vernacular that enables
to perceive
themselves
persons
dependent
asmoral agents and to act against
practices?
civic
disen
arranged marriages,
purdah,
Rights
doctrines
challenge
religions,
?
authontanan
powerful
tribes, and
States.
so on?that
domestic
franchisement,
slavery, and
genital mutilation,
are ratified
by the weight and authority of their cultures. These agents
seek out human rights protection precisely because it legitimizes
their
protests against oppression.
If this is so, then it is necessary to rethink what itmeans when one
says that rights are universal. Rights doctrines arouse powerful oppo
sition because they challenge powerful
religions, family structures,
authoritarian
states, and tribes. Itwould be a hopeless task to attempt
to
persuade these holders of power of the universal validity of rights
since if these doctrines prevailed, their exercise of authority
doctrines,
would
be abridged and constrained.
Thus universality
necessarily
a
cannot
imply universal assent, since in world of unequal power, the
that the powerful
and powerless would
agree on
only propositions
would be entirely toothless and anodyne. Rights are universal because
interests of the powerless?namely,
that
they define the universal
over
them inways that respect their autonomy as
power be exercised
creed,
agents. In this sense, human rights represent a revolutionary
a
since they make
radical demand of all human groups that they serve
the interests of the individuals who compose them. This, then, implies
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[ 10 9 ]
Michael Ignatieff
or at
consensual,
groups should be, insofar as possible,
least that they should respect an individual's right to exit when
the
that human
constraints
of the group become unbearable.
The idea that groups should respect an individual's right of exit is
are. Most
not easy to reconcile with what groups
human
actually
blood groups, based on inherited
family, for example?are
groups?the
or ethnic ties.
not choose to be born into them and
kinship
People do
do not leave them easily, since these collectivities
provide the frame
sense. This
of meaning within which
individual life makes
is as true
or
as
in modern
it is in religious
secular societies
traditional ones.
to
exist
Group
rights doctrines
safeguard the collective
rights?for
to
individual
make
and
agency
language?that
meaningful
example,
and group
interests
valuable.
But
individual
conflict.
inevitably
to
to define the irre
these conflicts,
Human
adjudicate
rights exist
ducible minimum
claims must
group and collective
beyond which
not go in constraining
the lives of individuals.
CULTURE
the
values
SHOCK
does not necessarily
in your right not to be
entail adopting Western
ways of life. Believing
mean
or
not
abused need
tortured
dress, speaking
adopting Western
or
Western
approving of theWestern
languages,
lifestyle. To seek
is not to change your civilization;
it ismerely
human rights protection
to avail
of what
the philosopher
Isaiah
yourself of the protections
Berlin called "negative liberty": to be free from oppression,
bondage,
and gross physical harm.
Adopting
Human
rights
culture as awhole.
of individual
do not, and
The women
agency
should
traditional
not, delegitimize
in Kabul who come to human rights
to cease
from the Taliban do not want
agencies
seeking protection
wives and mothers;
Muslim
being
and professional
with education
want to combine their traditions
they
health care provided by a woman.
And they hope the agencies will defend them against being beaten
and persecuted
The
such rights.
legitimacy of such claims is reinforced by the fact that the
people who
employees
[lio]
for claiming
make
them
of international
FOREIGN
are not
foreign
organizations
AFFAIRS-Volume
human
rights
but the victims
80 No.
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activists
themselves.
or
The Attack
onHuman
Rights
it is poor rural women who are criticizing
of Islamic teaching
that claims to justify
women
are
burned
alive when
which
"honor killings"?in
they
Human
have
their
husbands.
gone
global by going
disobey
rights
the powerless, giving voice to the voiceless.
local, empowering
It is simply not the case, as Islamic and Asian critics contend, that
human rights force theWestern
way of life on their societies. For all
its individualism,
human rights rhetoric does not require adherents
_
to
jettison their other cultural attachments.
In Pakistan, for example,
distortion
the grotesque
As the philosopher Jack Donnelly
argues, Human
rights
human rights assume "that people probably
are best suited, and in any case are entitled,
n<^^ delegitimize
to choose the good life for themselves."
traditional
should
culture.
is the
to
right
specifically the right
exit a group when
choice is denied. The global diffusion
of rights
never have occurred had these not been
would
language
authentically
to millions
attractive propositions
of people, especially women,
in
theocratic, traditional, or patriarchal societies.
What
the declaration
to choose, and
does mandate
it
argue that it is too "voluntaristic";
are free to choose the
implies that individuals in traditional societies
manner of their insertion into the
global economy and free to choose
to
which Western
values to adopt and which
reject. In reality, these
critics argue, people are not free to choose. Economic
globalization
steamrolls
local
and moral
economies,
globalization?human
as the
behind
legitimizing
rights?follows
ideology of global capitalism.
"Given the class interest of the internationalist
class carrying out
this agenda," law professor Kenneth Anderson
"the claim to
writes,
of this view would
Critics
is a sham. Universalism
ismere globalism and a globalism,
moreover, whose key terms are established by capital."
This idea that human rights represent the moral arm of global cap
italism falsifies
the insurgent nature of the relationship
between
universalism
human
and the global corporation. The activists of
their lives to
(ngos) who devote
organizations
nongovernmental
the labor practices of global giants such as Nike
and
challenging
rights
activism
Royal Dutch/Shell would be astonished to discover that their human
rights agenda has been
FOREIGN
serving the interests of global
AFFAIRS
capital all along.
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[ill]
Michael Ignatieff
and internationalism
and mixes up two
globalism
classes, the free market globalists and the human rights internationalists,
interests and values are in conflict.
whose
Anderson
conflates
do encourage
the emergence of assertively
these individuals
seek human
individuals,
rights in
order to protect themselves
from the indignities
and indecencies
of
the market. Moreover,
the dignity such individuals seek to protect is
not
models. Anderson
writes as if
necessarily derived from Western
human rights were always imposed from the top down by an inter
national elite bent on "saving the world." He
ignores the extent to
Although
self-interested
which
free markets
the demand
for human
comes
from the bottom
up.
is
what
makes
human
demands
that
Indeed,
rights
legitimate
they
emanate from the bottom, from the
of
Instead
powerless.
apologizing
human rights standards, activists
for the individualism
ofWestern
is how to create conditions
need to attend to another problem, which
on the bottom
are free to avail themselves
in which
of
individuals
the freedom of people to exercise their rights
such rights. Increasing
on close cultural
of the frameworks
that
understanding
depends
often
constrain
The much
What
may
rights
choice.
illustrates this point.
debated issue of female circumcision
as
in
mutilation
Western
eyes is, in some cultures,
appear
simply the price of tribal and family belonging forwomen. Accordingly,
if they fail to submit to the ritual, they lose their place in that world.
to exercise
their rights, therefore, may result in social
Choosing
ostracism, leaving them no option but to leave their tribe and make for
aware of what it
means
the city. Human
really
rights advocates should be
to abandon traditional practices under such circumstances.
for awoman
of the medical costs
And activists have an equal duty to inform women
of these practices and to seek, as a first step, to make
and consequences
them less dangerous for those who choose to undergo them.
to decide
it is for women
themselves
As for the final decision,
to
wisdom. The criteria
tribal andWestern
adjudicate between
consent
in
choices
that regulate medical
of informed
patients'
in non-Western
Western
societies are equally applicable
settings,
and dignity
and human rights activists must respect the autonomy
the choices for
of agents. An activist's proper role is not to make
of
in question but to enlarge those women's
the women
knowledge
how
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The Attack
onHuman
Rights
what the choices entail. In traditional
societies, harmful practices
can be abandoned
to do
the whole
decides
community
only when
so. Otherwise,
individuals who decide on their own face ostracism
or group con
in these cases means
collective
and worse. Consent
sent. Yet even group consent must be built on consultation with the
involved.
individuals
to the real constraints
that limit individual freedom in
Sensitivity
different cultures is not the same thing as deferring to these cultures.
It simply means facing up
It does not mean abandoning universality.
to a
intercultural dialogue inwhich all parties come to the
demanding
table under common
of being treated as moral equals.
expectations
Traditional
it, not because
society is oppressive for individuals within
it fails to afford them aWestern
way of life, but because it does not
accord them a right to speak and be heard. Western
activists have no
that such
traditional
cultural practice, provided
right to overturn
to receive the assent of itsmembers. Human
practice continues
rights
are universal not as a vernacular of cultural
as a
but
prescription
language
of moral empowerment.
Their role is not in defining
the content of
culture but in trying to enfranchise
all agents so that they can freely
content.
shape that
to human
The best way to face the cultural challenges
rights
to
from
and
Western
is
admit
Islam,
Asia,
coming
postmodernism
their truth: rights discourse
is individualistic.
But that is precisely
an effective
why it has proven
remedy against tyranny, and why it
to
has proven attractive
cultures. The
people from very different
other advantage of liberal individualism
is that it is a distinctly
"thin"
theory of the human good: it defines and proscribes the "negative"?
that is, those restraints and injustices
that make
life,
any human
at the same time, it does not pre
however
conceived,
impossible;
scribe the "positive" range of good lives that human beings can lead.
The doctrine
of human rights is morally
universal because
it says
that all human beings need certain specific freedoms
it
does
"from";
not go on to define what
their freedom
"to" should comprise.1
In
1
These distinctions?negative
liberty, positive liberty, freedom from, freedom to?are
Isaiah
"Two
Berlin,
suggested by
Concepts of Liberty," in The Proper Study ofMankind,
ed. Henry Hardy (London: Chatto andWindus,
1997), pp. 191-243; on "thin" theories of
the good, see John Rawls,yf Theory ofJustice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).
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[113]
Michael Ignatieff
this sense, it is a less prescriptive universalism
it articulates
standards of human decency
of cultural
moral
sides make
voice. When
without
violating
religions:
rights
autonomy.
THE
In the
than the world's
WEST
dispute
AGAINST
ITSELF
between
the "West" and the "rest," both
of assuming
the mistake
that the other speaks with one
the non-Western world looks at human rights, it assumes?
in a matrix of historical
the discourse originates
tradi
rightly?that
tions shared by all the major Western
countries. But these Western
nations interpret the core principles of their own rights tradition very
common
tradition does not necessarily
result in com
differently. A
mon
on
points of view
rights. All of the formative rights cultures of
a
the French,
and the American?give
the West?the
English,
different account of such issues as privacy, free speech, incitement,
the right to bear arms, and the right to life.
In the 50 years since the promulgation
these disagreements
of Human
Rights,
of the Universal
Declaration
more
salient.
a
more
the moral unanimity
of the West?always
Indeed,
myth
breaking up and
persuasive from the outside than from the inside?is
once
rights discourse
revealing its unalterable heterogeneity. American
to British
belonged to the common European natural law tradition and
now competes
common law. But this awareness of a common
anchorage
a
sense
of American moral and legal exceptionalism.
with
growing
human rights policy in the last 20 years has been increas
American
it is the product of a nation with a
and paradoxical:
ingly distinctive
the
great national rights tradition that leads the world in denouncing
have become
to
ratify key international
rights violations of others but refuses
to the
resistance
itself. The most
important
rights conventions
norms comes not from
of international
domestic
rights
application
tradition or from Islamic and Asian
rogue states outside theWestern
human
the heart of the Western
It comes, in fact, from within
a nation that, in
to
linking rights
popular
rights tradition itself, from
as an
human
international
opposes
rights oversight
sovereignty,
on its
democracy. Of all the ironies in the history of
infringement
of Human
human rights since the signing of the Universal Declaration
societies.
[114]
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The Attack
onHuman
Rights
the one that would most astonish Eleanor Roosevelt
is the
to which her own country is now the odd one out.
degree
In the next 50 years, the moral consensus
that sustained the dec
to
laration in 1948 will continue
splinter. For all the rhetoric about
common values, the distance between
the United
States and Europe
on issues such as abortion and
capital punishment may grow, just as
the distance between
theWest
and the rest may also increase. There
is no reason to believe that economic globalization
entails moral global
reason
to think that as economies have
ization. Indeed, there is some
Rights,
unified
their business
communication,
practices,
ownership,
a countermovement
has
languages,
and networks
de-
veloped to safeguard the integrity of national Disagreements
communities,
national
cultures,
religions,
and indigenous and religiousways of life.
This is a prophecy not of the end of the
human
rights movement
but of its belated
of
_
within
tne competing Western
rights traditions have
,
,.
become more
Salient
coming of age, its recognition thatwe live in
aworld of plural cultures that have a right over the last
50 years.
to
in the argument about
equal consideration
what we can and cannot, should and should not, do to human
beings.
the central historical
of
human
Indeed, this maybe
importance
rights
in the history of human progress:
it has abolished
the hierarchy of
to think
civilizations
and cultures. As late as 1945, it was common
as
of European
civilization
it
inherently superior to the civilizations
ruled. Today many Europeans
continue to believe this, but they know
to the
that they have no right to do so.More
point, many non-Western
also took the civilizational
of their rulers for
peoples
superiority
no
reason to continue
this.
granted. They
longer have any
believing
One reason for that is the global diffusion of human rights talk?the
articulates the moral equality of all
language that most consistently
the individuals on the face of the earth. But to the
degree that it does
over the
it
the
increases
level
of
conflict
this,
simultaneously
meaning,
and legitimacy of rights claims.
application,
Rights language states that all human beings belong at the table in
the essential conversation
about how we should treat each other. But
once
this universal
right
to
speak and be heard
is granted,
there
is
bound to be tumult. There isbound to be discord.Why? Because the
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[ 115 ]
Michael Ignatieff
once took it upon themselves to silence the babble
European voices that
no
as their
to do so,
with a peremptory
ruling
longer take it
privilege
no
and those who sit with them at the table
longer grant them the
so.
as
a step toward a world
as
to do
All this counts
progress,
right
in different cultures and religions: aworld of
imagined for millennia
aworld of moral
genuine moral equality among human beings. But
a
argument, and contention.
equality is world of conflict, deliberation,
We
need to stop thinking of human rights as trumps and begin
as part of a
creates the basis for delib
thinking of them
language that
eration. In this argument,
the ground we share may actually be quite
is pain
limited?not
much more than the basic intuition that what
and humiliation
for you is bound to be pain and humiliation
for me.
In such a future, shared among equals,
But this is already something.
are not the universal
credo of a global society, not a secular
rights
more limited and yet
as valuable: the
religion, but something much
just
shared vocabulary from which our arguments can begin, and the bare
human minimum
can
take
[ll6]
from which
differing
ideas of human
root.?
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flourishing