The Basic Right to Justification: Towards a Constructivist Conception of Human Rights

Abstract

In contemporary debates on the concept of human rights, one frequently encounters the critique that this is not only a specifically Western concept, but also a tool which Western, capitalist states use to politically and culturally dominate other societies. The first thesis concerns the historical genesis and normative validity of human rights, while the second touches on political issues of their interpretation and application. Concerning the second thesis, one needs to take a closer look at the critique, especially at who raises it and against which policy or institution it is directed. It may turn out that such accusations are justified and that, at times, the rhetoric of human rights does serve to veil the political or economic aims of states or international parties who wish to achieve or maintain influence and dominance. But it is just as possible that this critique is unjustified and that the accusation of “neocolonialism” is employed ideologically, in order to conceal governments’ attempts to defend their own political power. Demands that particular values and traditions be observed and corresponding demands that cultural and political autonomy be respected may be pretexts for unimpededly dominating and oppressing segments of one’s own populace or neighboring states. In light of this situation, it is important to see that one walks into a trap if one believes that one must decide the matter generally and unequivocally in favor of one or the other position. For, in any given case, one or the other or even both critiques may be sound. And in the event that both critiques are appropriate, the dichotomous perception of reality characteristic of the postcolonial era threatens to deny the interests of those who raise the demand for human rights against those who hold power in their own state, without sharing the interests or political and economic ideas of Western states. In any case, one makes the situation too easy if one regards a priori every single critique of human rights as a disguised attempt to claim freedom to oppress instead of freedom from oppression. And, regardless of whether it is justified in a given situation, the discussion of political strategies and rhetoric hardly affects the first, more fundamental thesis, which states that human rights are a culturally specific, Western invention and ipso facto cannot be globally valid. Now, it is clearly indisputable that the concept of individual rights human beings have as human beings arose in the context of the secularization and modernization of European culture.3 Hence it is neither very difficult nor unjustified to draw attention to and emphasize