Human Rights Task 3
1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) declares that human rights are universal and inalienable. However, since the Declaration was
written arguments have continued to be made that the human rights in the Universal Declaration and other United Nations documents are
culturally specific to Western democratic societies. How do you regard international human rights protection? Is it universal and inalienable, or is
it culturally specific? Explain in detail by reference to primary and secondary legal sources why you choose one or other option.
The Universal Declaration of Human rights highlights the rights and freedoms for every single individual. It
was the General Assembly of the United Nations and it was adopted on December 10th 1948. This was
influenced by the continuous work wars that had been happening around the world at the times. The
Declaration was the first time that counties had agreed on a complete statement of inalienable human rights.
It begins by firstly recognising that the inherent dignity of all members human family is the foundation of
justice, peace in the world and freedom. It also includes political and civil rights, like the right to free speech,
liberty, life and privacy and also does include social,economic and cultural rights like the right to heath,
education and social security. This Universal Declaration declares that human rights are in fact universal and
to be enjoyed by all people no matter who they are or where they live but could they also be culturally
specific instead?
The Universal Declaration does not create legal obligations for countries and so in this case it is not
classified a treaty, but it can be described as an expression of fundamental values in which are shared by
members of the international community. The Declaration has had a huge influence on the creation of
international human rights law and has given a rise to a whole lot of range of other integration agreements in
which are legally binding on the countries that approve of them and these are
-The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also known as ICCPR
-The International Covenant on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights also known as ICESCR.
The ICCPR states the key rights of protection for people, for example things like right to a fair trial freedoms
of speech, assembly, equal protections of the law and association and it gives an influence on countries
around the world to protect and defend rule of law principles.
The ICESRC is an international human right treaty and this ensures the enjoyment of social economic and
social right including the rights to education, fair and just condition of work, adequate standard of living,
highest attainable standard of health and social security.
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The question whether The Human Declaration of human rights are Universal and Inalienable or culturally
specific depends how it is looked at. Yes it said and does state in the Human Rights that they are in fact
inalienable and universal. Universal meaning that no matter what who the person is or where they live it is to
be followed by “all” people, and Inalienable meaning that no one can take them away from you. But then
when culture steps into place it changes not of things and tends to play a big factor in a lot of peoples lives.
Culture is a way of life for certain groups of people which influences the way they do things their attitudes,
values, morals, goals, and customs shared by that same group. It is something that is followed by certain
individuals who have those same beliefs and decide to live their life according to that type of culture.
This is where the whole whether it is universal and inalienable or is culturally specific comes into play
because how can there be one set of rules for every single person world wide to follow when not everyone is
the same and are all different. We don’t all believe in the same thing and all think differently, and many
people are in their own cultural groups, in which they follow and believe in so they tend to have their own
set of rights you could say and terms to follow and live by so how can these rules possibly be followed by all
people when this can be the case.
The Universal Declaration of human rights when is comes to the people of strong cultural background say
that it does fails to really account for the cultural norms and values that do tend to exist in the rest of the
world an attempt to impose Western values on everybody else being a western biased document, as if said by
some critics as it was created in the western and people have had the talk that it is unfair and not right that
