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Human Rights and Asian Values: The Limits of Universalism

Human Rights and Asian Values: The Limits of Universalism Features 295 Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell, editors. The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. xiii, 394 pp. Paperback $21.95, ISBN 0­521­64536­0. The swift rise of human rights as a normative benchmark for any government claiming legitimacy must surely rank as one of the most inspiring humanitarian stories of all time. Given the dominance of human rights on the political stage today, it is easy to forget that the international human rights movement is primarily a post­World War II product. The movement's origins can be traced back to more distant events, most notably the Enlightenment response to the emergence of capitalism and modern industrial leviathans, which uprooted people from their communities and family networks and left individuals exposed to an increasingly powerful state. But the immediate catalyst was the Holocaust.1 While predominantly the outgrowth of the contingent circumstances and concerns of Western countries,2 the international human rights movement has sought to escape its culture specific origins by basing its moral authority on universal claims. The 1993 Bangkok Declaration constituted the most serious challenge to the movement in its short life by calling into question the universality of its normative claims. Increasingly http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png China Review International University of Hawai'I Press

Human Rights and Asian Values: The Limits of Universalism

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Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-9367
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Abstract

Features 295 Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell, editors. The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. xiii, 394 pp. Paperback $21.95, ISBN 0­521­64536­0. The swift rise of human rights as a normative benchmark for any government claiming legitimacy must surely rank as one of the most inspiring humanitarian stories of all time. Given the dominance of human rights on the political stage today, it is easy to forget that the international human rights movement is primarily a post­World War II product. The movement's origins can be traced back to more distant events, most notably the Enlightenment response to the emergence of capitalism and modern industrial leviathans, which uprooted people from their communities and family networks and left individuals exposed to an increasingly powerful state. But the immediate catalyst was the Holocaust.1 While predominantly the outgrowth of the contingent circumstances and concerns of Western countries,2 the international human rights movement has sought to escape its culture specific origins by basing its moral authority on universal claims. The 1993 Bangkok Declaration constituted the most serious challenge to the movement in its short life by calling into question the universality of its normative claims. Increasingly

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China Review International – University of Hawai'I Press

Published: Sep 1, 2000

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