Who Is Afraid of Human Rights? A Taiwanese Perspective

Abstract

The universality of human rights is, without a slightest doubt, an ideal with reference to the satisfaction of human rights. It is the foundation of human rights appeal where human persons, the agents, are yet to be the objects of States. Consequently, one who argues for the universalism of human rights is indulging in the formalistic approach to the discourse of human rights. The responsibility of States to respect and protect human rights of their peoples has to be universal from the viewpoint of international rule of law and international legal order as well. However, in reality, the enjoyment of human rights is hard to be universalized with reference to the indeterminate nature of the contents of human rights. Sometimes, the methodology in discoursing human rights might be supportive for the argument that the protection and enjoyment of human rights are in nature of relative and localized. This is the so-called Relativism or Localism. Asian value is thus of a child of the Relativists. In fact, without an adequate theory of human rights, the Relativists are as good as the Universalists in terms of the flexibility of standards in human rights. If the situation keeps on as such, then, who is afraid of human rights?