Cultural relativism Essay

The issue of everydayism of humans justifiedlys vs. cultural relativism has been a focal point of heated debate for the goal several decades. As globalization is bringing nations together, cultural differences and peculiarities become increasingly more salient. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the coupled Nation in 1948, lists several categories of rights that the peoples of the world have agreed to throw and recognize.These rights include the right to life, liberty and security of person the right to be free from slavery and servitude the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or arbitrary arrest, clench or exile the right to marriage with the free and full harmonize of the parties the right to own property the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religionm and the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work ( unify Nations, 1948).These rights argon universally rec ognized because they protect the dignity of an individualist and the basic social institutions which are present in virtually every culture. However, their universality is still contested, as human rights as laid out in the international covenants trim the traditions, the religions, and the socio-cultural patterns of what used to be called the Third World (Tharoor, 1998, para.1). For example, in some African societies, group rights have always taken precedence over individual rights, and political decisions have been made with group consensus, not through individual assertions of rights (Tharoor, 1998, para. 4). There are many instances when traditional practices conflict with universal human rights.For example, female genital mutilation, practiced by some African and Asian people for cultural and communal reasons, translates into irreversible lifelong health risks for females (UNICEF, 2008). The debate whether human rights are universal is perennial. It is important to recogniz e, however, that an effective material for the protection of human rights can be developed only exploitation a bottom-up approach, giving the broad support of a alliance where human rights are promoted.References Tharoor, Shashi. (1998). Are Human Rights Universal? World polity Journal, 16(4). Retieved June 11, 2009, from http//www. worldpolicy. org/journal/tharoor. html UNICEF. (2008). Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting. Retrieved June 11, 2009, from http//www. unicef. org/protection/index_genitalmutilation. html United Nations. (1948). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved June 11, 2009, from http//www. un. org/en/documents/udhr