Oldal 276 [276]
HERBERT HANREICH
impossible task to undertake since we cannot possibly know what exactly is to be
identified when referring to the vague term dignity". But what seems to be at first
sight a terminological weakness finally turns out to be its normative strength:
dignity must not be defined. It is my contention that a conclusive foundation of
human rights must be able to demonstrate its inconclusiveness in principle.
But first I shall briefly discuss two Western-critical models of human rights
developed in regional preparatory meetings for the World Conference of Human
Rights, held in Vienna in 1993.
II. COLONIZING HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE NAME OF COLLECTIVITIES
Countries and cultures have claimed through their leaders that the UDHR is
a Western-influenced creation that needs to be counterbalanced by somehow
broader perspectives. Two powerful alternatives to the ‘westernized’ human rights
concept have been advanced in the early 1990s: Islam? and (Confucian) East-Asian
authoritarianism‘; there are others.
We have official documents, written manifestations of what governments of
those regions or faiths hold as human rights as they target existing ‘Western’
versions’. They are, as I wish to demonstrate, politically and philosophically highly
problematic because of an awry collusion of nature and culture.
Islam and human rights
Islamic governments insist on their own human rights model. Central for the
understanding of their perspective is the so-called Cairo Declaration on Human
Rights in Islam (CDHR)®, adopted in Cairo in 1990 by the Organisation of Islamic
Other religions could also be apt candidates to be put under critical scrutiny with respect
to human rights. Sam Harris, The End of Faith, New York, NY, Norton, 2004, 158, has
beautifully described how liberal rights such as homosexuality or porn consumption have
been miraculously turned by U.S. Christian leaders into ‘abominable sins’ that deserve to
be publicly prosecuted.
Otfried Hoeffe’s newspaper article on Konfuzius, der Koran und die Gerechtigkeit, in
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (24 August 2015), deals with a similar topic. However, it is
a rather academic, less critical article envisaging a world that could share common values
from various cultures.
5 Historically, the UNDHR is not a ‘Western’ version. It has been adopted by all UN member
states in 1948 save a few abstentions.
I shall refer to its revised successor document of 2020 below.
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