Are human rights truly universal Give reasons for your answer - Essay Example

This has facilitated the violations of these rights. It is therefore inappropriate to term the human rights as universal, since their universality is questionable. Protection of human rights has been the sole mandate of the United Nations (UN). From the end of the Second World War, there have been various interventions made by the UN to promote peace and stability. Besides, they have developed instruments that have been able to counter the effect of human rights violations. Whenever instruments are put in place, there is need for approval by the member states.

Despite these frameworks being established, there are places where individuals are in ignorant of their rights or else there is violation of the human rights without the subjects raising any resistance. In other areas, the concept of human rights is foreign; in fact, it is seen as a western issue (Brown and Ainsley 2009, pg 5). This helps cast doubt of the universal nature of human rights. The fact that there are individuals that are not aware of their rights makes it impossible to think of human rights from a universal perspective.

In other cases, there are countries or blocks of countries that have opposed the human rights on the basis that it is a strategy by some counties to exploit them. For example, during the cold war, there was heightened tension by from the southern countries as well as the countries allied to Russia, which saw the whole aspect as an interference from the capitalist states (Baylis and Smith 2010, pg 16). The world is comprised of very many cultural inclinations, which affects the way people live and perceive various aspects.

Some of the provisions of human rights go against culture hence there occurs a big conflict between the two. The applicability of human right ceases in such circumstances where culture takes preeminence, this occurs mainly in places where culture