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The c
 
 
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human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed
Council of Europe,[1] the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953. All Council of
Europe member states are party to the Convention and new members are expected to ratify the
convention at the earliest opportunity.[2]

The Convention established the European Court of Human Rights. Any person who feels his or
her rights have been violated under the Convention by a state party can take a case to the Court.
Judgements finding violations are binding on the States concerned and they are obliged to
execute them. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe monitors the execution of
judgements, particularly to ensure payment of the amounts awarded by the Court to the
applicants in compensation for the damage they have sustained. The establishment of a Court to
protect individuals from human rights violations is an innovative feature for an international
convention on human rights, as it gives the individual an active role on the international arena
(traditionally, only states are considered actors in international law). The European Convention is
still the only international human rights agreement providing such a high degree of individual
protection. State parties can also take cases against other state parties to the Court, although this
power is rarely used.

The Convention has several protocols. For example, Protocol 13 prohibits the death penalty. The
protocols accepted vary from State Party to State Party, though it is understood that state parties
should be party to as many protocols as possible.




[hide]

—? 1 History
—? 2 Drafting
—? 3 Convention articles
Ê? 3.1 Article 1 - respecting rights
Ê? 3.2 Article 2 - life
Ê? 3.3 Article 3 - torture
Ê? 3.G Article G - servitude
Ê? 3.5 Article 5 - liberty and security
Ê? 3.6 Article 6 - fair trial
Ê? 3.7 Article 7 - retrospectivity
Ê? 3.8 Article 8 - privacy
Ê? 3.9 Article 9 - conscience and religion
Ê? 3.10 Article 10 - expression
Ê? 3.11 Article 11 - association
Ê? 3.12 Article 12 - marriage
Ê? 3.13 Article 13 - effective remedy
Ê? 3.1G Article 1G - discrimination
Ê? 3.15 Article 15 - derogations
Ê? 3.16 Article 16 - aliens
Ê? 3.17 Article 17 - abuse of rights
Ê? 3.18 Article 18 - permitted restrictions
—? G Convention protocols
Ê? G.1 Protocol 1, Article 1 - property
Ê? G.2 Protocol 1, Article 2 - education
Ê? G.3 Protocol 1, Article 3 - elections
Ê? G.G Protocol G - civil imprisonment, free movement, expulsion
Ê? G.5 Protocol 6 - restriction of death penalty
 Ê? G.6 Protocol 7 - crime and family
Ê? G.7 Protocol 12 - discrimination
Ê? G.8 Protocol 13 - complete abolition of death penalty
Ê? G.9 Procedural and institutional protocols
—? 5 Citation
—? 6 See also
—? 7 Notes
—? 8 Further reading
—? 9 External links

º




2000 stamp. 50 years of European Convention on Human Rights

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The development of a regional system of Human Rights protection operating across Europe can
be seen as a direct response to twin concerns. First, in the aftermath of the Second World War,
the convention, drawing on the inspiration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be
seen as part of a wider response of the Allied Powers in delivering a human rights agenda
through which it was believed that the most serious human rights violations which had occurred
during the Second World War (most notably, The Holocaust) could be avoided in the future.
Second, The Convention was a response to the growth of Communism in Eastern Europe and
designed to protect the member states of the Council of Europe from communist subversion.
This, in part, explains the constant references to values and principles that are "necessary in a
democratic society" throughout the Convention, despite the fact that such principles are not in
any way defined within the convention itself.[3]

The Convention was drafted by the Council of Europe after World War II. Sir David Maxwell-
Fyfe was the Chair of the Council's legal and administrative division from 19G9 to 1952, and
oversaw the drafting of Convention. It was designed to incorporate a traditional civil liberties
approach to securing "effective political democracy", from the strongest traditions in the United
Kingdom, France and other member states of Europe. The Convention was opened for signature
on G November 1950 in Rome. It was ratified and entered into force on 3 September 1953. It is
overseen by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and the Council of Europe.
Until recently, the Convention was also overseen by a European Commission on Human Rights.

º



The Convention is drafted in broad terms, in a similar (albeit more modern) manner to the
English Bill of Rights, the American Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man
or the first part of the German Basic law. Statements of principle are, from a legal point of view,
not determinative and require extensive "interpretation" by courts to bring out meaning in
particular factual situations.

º
 



As amended by Protocol 11, the Convention consists of three parts. The main rights and
freedoms are contained in Section I, which consists of Articles 2 to 18. Section II (Articles 19 to
51) sets up the Court and its rules of operation. Section III contains various concluding
provisions.

Before the entry into force of Protocol 11, Section II (Article 19) set up the Commission and the
Court, Sections III (Articles 20 to 37) and IV (Articles 38 to 59) included the high-level
machinery for the operation of, respectively, the Commission and the Court, and Section V
contained various concluding provisions.

Many of the Articles in Section I are structured in two paragraphs: the first sets out a basic right
or freedom (such as Article 2(1) - the right to life) but the second contains various exclusions,
exceptions or limitations on the basic right (such as Article 2(2) - which excepts certain uses of
force leading to death).

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Article 1 simply binds the signatory parties to secure the rights under the other Articles of the
Convention "within their jurisdiction". In exceptional cases, "jurisdiction" may not be confined
to a Contracting State's own national territory; the obligation to secure Convention rights then
also extends to foreign territory, such as occupied land in which the State exercises effective
control.

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Article 2 protects the right of every person to their life. The first paragraph of the article contains
an exception for the lawful executions, while the second paragraph provides that death resulting
from defending ones self or others, arresting a suspect or fugitive, or suppressing riots or
insurrections, will not contravene the Article when the use of force involved is "no more than
absolutely necessary".

This right does also not derogate under article 15 of the convention during peacetime. The
exemption for the case of lawful executions is further restricted by Protocols 6 and 13 (see
below), for those parties who are also parties to those protocols.

The European Court of Human Rights did not rule upon the right to life until 1995, when in

 '
([G] it ruled that the exception contained in the second paragraph do
not constitute situations when it is permitted to kill, but situations where it is permitted to use
force which might result in the deprivation of life.[5]

The Court has ruled that states have three main duties under Article 2:

1.? a duty to refrain from unlawful killing,

2.? a duty to investigate suspicious deaths and,
3.? in certain circumstances, a positive duty to prevent foreseeable loss of life.[6]

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Article 3 prohibits torture, and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". There are no
exceptions or limitations on this right. This provision usually applies, apart from torture, to cases
of severe police violence and poor conditions in detention.

The Court have emphasised the fundamental nature of Article 3 in holding that the prohibition is
made in "absolute terms ... irrespective of a victim's conduct."[7] The Court has also held that
states cannot deport or extradite individuals who might be subjected to torture, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment, in the recipient state.[8]

Initially the Court took a restrictive view on what consisted of torture, preferring to find that
states had inflicted inhuman and degrading treatment. Thus the court held that practices such as
sleep deprivation, subjecting individual to intense noise and requiring them to stand against a
wall with their limbs outstretched for extended periods of time, did not constitute torture.[9] In
fact the Court only found a state guilty of torture in 1996 in the case of a detainee who was
suspended by his arms whilst his hands were tied behind his back.[10] Since then the Court has
appeared to be more open to finding states guilty of torture and has even ruled that since the
Convention is a "living instrument", treatment which it had previously characterised as inhuman
or degrading treatment might in future be regarded as torture.[11]

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Article G prohibits slavery, servitude and forced labour but exempts labour:

—? done as a normal part of imprisonment,

—? in the form of compulsory military service or work done as an alternative by
conscientious objectors,
—? required to be done during a state of emergency, and
—? considered to be a part of a person's normal "civic obligations."

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Article 5 provides that everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. Liberty and
security of the person are taken as a "compound" concept - security of the person has not been
subject to separate interpretation by the Court.

Article 5 provides the right to liberty, subject only to lawful arrest or detention under certain
other circumstances, such as arrest on suspicion of a crime or imprisonment in fulfilment of a
sentence. The article also provides the right to be informed in a language one understands of the
reasons for the arrest and any charge against them, the right of prompt access to judicial
proceedings to determine the legality of one's arrest or detention and to trial within a reasonable
time or release pending trial, and the right to compensation in the case of arrest or detention in
violation of this article.

—? 
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( (1998) 28 EHRR 603

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Article 6 provides a detailed right to a fair trial, including the right to a public hearing before an
independent and impartial tribunal within reasonable time, the presumption of innocence, and
other minimum rights for those charged with a criminal offence (adequate time and facilities to
prepare their defence, access to legal representation, right to examine witnesses against them or
have them examined, right to the free assistance of an interpreter).

The majority of Convention violations that the Court finds today are excessive delays, in
violation of the "reasonable time" requirement, in civil and criminal proceedings before national
courts, mostly in Italy and France. Under the "independent tribunal" requirement, the Court has
ruled that military judges in Turkish state security courts are incompatible with Article 6. Turkey
now adopted a law abolishing these courts in compliance with the Article.

Another significant set of violations concerns the "confrontation clause" of Article 6 (i.e. the
right to examine witnesses or have them examined). In this respect, problems of compliance with
Article 6 may arise when national laws allow the use in evidence of the testimonies of absent,
anonymous and vulnerable witnesses.

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Prohibits the retrospective criminalisation of acts and omissions. No person may be punished for
an act that was not a criminal offence at the time of its commission. The article states that a
criminal offence is one under either national or international law, which would permit a party to
prosecute someone for a crime which was not illegal under their domestic law at the time, so
long as it was prohibited by international law. The Article also prohibits a heavier penalty being
imposed than was applicable at the time when the criminal act was committed.

Article 7 incorporates the legal principle $$ $$$ into the
convention.

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Article 8 provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his
correspondence", subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary
in a democratic society". This article clearly provides a right to be free of unlawful searches, but
the Court has given the protection for "private and family life" that this article provides a broad
interpretation, taking for instance that prohibition of private consensual homosexual acts violates
this article. This may be compared to the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court,
which has also adopted a somewhat broad interpretation of the right to privacy. Furthermore,
Article 8 sometimes comprises positive obligations: whereas classical human rights are
formulated as prohibiting a State from interfering with rights, and thus 
to do something (e.g.
not to separate a family under family life protection), the effective enjoyment of such rights may
also include an obligation for the State to become active, and to  something (e.g. to enforce
access for a divorced father to his child).

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Article 9 provides a right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This includes the
freedom to change a religion or belief, and to manifest a religion or belief in worship, teaching,
practice and observance, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and
"necessary in a democratic society"

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Article 10 provides the right to freedom of expression, subject to certain restrictions that are "in
accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". This right includes the freedom to
hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas.

—? 0&
 (1986) 8 EHRR G07
—? ë/ë0'
( (1991) 1G EHRR 153, the
"Spycatcher" case.
—? V'
( (1998) 26 EHRR 1
—?

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( (2003) 37 EHRR 38

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Article 11 protects the right to freedom of assembly and association, including the right to form
trade unions, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a
democratic society".

—? 
01 (1995)
—? 3(
&21ë21 (2003) 36 EHRR 59

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Article 12 provides a right for women and men of marriageable age to marry and establish a
family.

Despite a number of invitations, the Court has so far refused to apply the protections of this
article to same-sex marriage. The Court has defended this on the grounds that the article was
intended to apply only to different-sex marriage, and that a wide margin of appreciation must be
granted to parties in this area.

In 0'
( the Court ruled that a law which still classified post-operative
transsexual persons under their pre-operative sex, violated article 12 as it meant that transsexual
persons were unable to marry individuals of their post-operative opposite sex. This reversed an
earlier ruling in '
(. This did not, however, alter the Court's understanding
that Article 12 protects only different-sex couples.

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Article 13 provides for the right for an effective remedy before national authorities for violations
of rights under the Convention. The inability to obtain a remedy before a national court for an
infringement of a Convention right is thus a free-standing and separately actionable infringement
of the Convention.
º


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Article 1G contains a prohibition of discrimination. This prohibition is broad in some ways, and
narrow in others. On the one hand, the article protects against discrimination based on any of a
wide range of grounds. The article provides a list of such grounds, including sex, race, colour,
language, religion and several other criteria, and most significantly providing that this list is non-
exhaustive. On the other hand, the article's scope is limited only to discrimination with respect to
rights under the Convention. Thus, an applicant must prove discrimination in the enjoyment of a
specific right that is guaranteed elsewhere in the Convention (e.g. discrimination based on sex -
Article 1G - in the enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression - Article 10). Protocol 12
extends this prohibition to cover discrimination in any legal right, even when that legal right is
not protected under the Convention, so long as it is provided for in national law.

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Article 15 allows contracting states to derogate from certain rights guaranteed by the Convention
in time of "war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation". Permissible
derogations under article 15 must meet three substantive conditions:

1.? there must be a public emergency threatening the life of the nation;
2.? any measures taken in response must be "strictly required by the exigencies of the
situation", and
3.? the measures taken in response to it, must be in compliance with a states other obligations
under international law

In addition to these substantive requirements the derogation must be procedurallly sound. The
must be some formal announcement of the derogation and notice of the erogation, any measures
adopted under it, and the ending of the derogation must be communicated to the Secretary-
General of the Council of Europe[12]

The Court is quite permissive in accepting a state's derogations from the Convention but applies
a higher degree of scrutiny in deciding whether measures taken by states under a derogation are,
in the words of Article 15, "strictly required by the exigencies of the situation". Thus in &
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(, the Court dismissed a claim that a derogation lodged by the British government
in response to the September 11 attacks was invalid, but went on to find that measures taken by
the United Kingdom under that derogation were disproportionate.[13]

In order for a derogation itself to be valid, the emergency giving rise to it must be:

—? actual or imminent, although states do not have to wait for disasters to strike before
taking preventive measures,[1G]
—? involve the whole nation, although this does exclude emergencies which are confined to
regions,[15]
[16]
—? threaten the continuance of the organised life of the community,
—? exceptional such that measures and restriction permitted by the Convention would be
"plainly inadequate" to deal with the emergency.[16]
º


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Article 16 allows states to restrict the political activity of foreigners. The Court has ruled that
European Union member states cannot consider the nationals of other member states to be
aliens.[17]

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Article 17 provides that no one may use the rights guaranteed by the Convention to seek the
abolition or limitation of rights guaranteed in the Convention. This addresses instances where
states seek to restrict a human right in the name of another human right, or where individuals rely
on a human right to undermine other human rights (for example where an individual issues a
death threat).

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Article 18 provides that any limitations on the rights provided for in the Convention may be used
only for the purpose for which they are provided. For example, Article 5, which guarantees the
right to personal freedom, may be explicitly limited in order to bring a suspect before a judge. To
use pre-trial detention as a means of intimidation of a person under a false pretext is therefore a
limitation of right (to freedom) which does not serve an explicitly provided purpose (to be
brought before a judge), and is therefore contrary to Article 18.

º
 



As of January 2010, fifteen protocols to the Convention have been opened for signature. These
can be divided into two main groups: those changing the machinery of the convention, and those
adding additional rights to those protected by the convention. The former require unanimous
ratification before coming into force, while the latter are optional protocols which only come into
force between ratifying member states (normally after a small threshold of states has been
reached).

For the first Protocol, Monaco and Switzerland have signed but never ratified. Andorra has
neither signed nor ratified.

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Article 1 provides for the rights to the peaceful enjoyment of one's possessions.

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Article 2 provides for the right not to be denied an education and the right for parents to have
their children educated in accordance with their religious and other views. It does not however
guarantee any particular level of education of any particular quality (V$$
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Article 3 provides for the right to regular, free and fair elections.

—? 

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( (1999) 28 EHRR 361

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Article 1 prohibits the imprisonment of people for breach of a contract. Article 2 provides for a
right to freely move within a country once lawfully there and for a right to leave any country.
Article 3 prohibits the expulsion of nationals and provides for the right of an individual to enter a
country of his or her nationality. Article G prohibits the collective expulsion of foreigners.

Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom have signed but never ratified Protocol G. Andorra,
Greece and Switzerland have neither signed nor ratified this protocol.

º


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Requires parties to restrict the application of the death penalty to times of war or "imminent
threat of war".

Every Council of Europe member state has signed and ratified Protocol 6, except Russia who has
signed but not ratified.[18]

º


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—? Article 1 provides for a right to fair procedures for lawfully resident foreigners facing
expulsion.
—? Article 2 provides for the right to appeal in criminal matters.
—? Article 3 provides for compensation for the victims of miscarriages of justice.
—? Article G prohibits the re-trial of anyone who has already been finally acquitted or
convicted of a particular offence (Double jeopardy).
—? Article 5 provides for equality between spouses.

Despite having signed the protocol more than twenty years ago, Belgium, Germany, the
Netherlands, Spain and Turkey have never ratified it. The United Kingdom has neither signed
nor ratified the protocol.

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Applies the current expansive and indefinite grounds of prohibited discrimination in Article 1G to
the exercise of any legal right and to the actions (including the obligations) of public authorities.
The Protocol entered into force on 1 April 2005 and has (As of July 2009) been ratified by 17
member states. Several member states ² namely Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Lithuania, Malta,
Monaco, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom ² have not signed the
protocol.[19]

The United Kingdom Government has declined to sign Protocol 12 on the basis that they believe
the wording of protocol is too wide and would result in a flood of new cases testing the extent of
the new provision. They believe that the phrase "rights set forth by law" might include
international conventions to which the UK is not a party, and would result in incorporation of
these instruments by stealth. It has been suggested that the protocol is therefore in a kind of
catch-22, since the UK will decline to either sign or ratify the protocol until the European Court
of Human Rights has addressed the meaning of the provision, while the court is hindered in
doing so by the lack of applications to the court concerning the protocol caused by the decisions
of Europe's most populous states ² including the UK ² not to ratify the protocol. The UK
Government, nevertheless, "agrees in principle that the ECHR should contain a provision against
discrimination that is free-standing and not parasitic on the other Convention rights".[20] The first
judgment finding a violation of Protocol No. 12 was delivered in 2009 ² Sejdić and Finci v.
Bosnia and Herzegovina.

º


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Provides for the total abolition of the death penalty.[21]

º









The Convention's provisions affecting institutional and procedural matters has been altered
several times by mean of protocols. These amendments have, with of the exception of Protocol 2,
amended the text of the convention. Protocol 2 did not amend the text of the convention as such,
but stipulated that it was to be treated as an integral part of the text. All of these protocols have
required the unanimous ratification of all the member states of the Council of Europe to enter
into force.

Protocol 11

Protocols 2, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 10 have now been superseded by Protocol 11 which entered into force
on 1 November 1998.[22] It established a fundamental change in the machinery of the convention.
It abolished the Commission, allowing individuals to apply directly to the Court, which was
given compulsory jurisdiction and altered the latter's structure. Previously states could ratify the
Convention without accepting the jurisdiction of the Court of Human Rights. The protocol also
abolished the judicial functions of the Committee of Ministers.

Protocol 1G

Protocol 1G follows on from Protocol 11 in proposing to further improving the efficiency of the
Court. It seeks to "filter" out cases that have less chance of succeeding along with those that are
broadly similar to cases brought previously against the same member state. Furthermore a case
will not be considered admissible where an applicant has not suffered a "significant
disadvantage". This latter ground can only be used when an examination of the application on
the merits is not considered necessary and where the subject-matter of the application had
already been considered by a national court.

A new mechanism was introduced by Protocol 1G to assist enforcement of judgements by the

Committee of Ministers. The Committee can ask the Court for an interpretation of a judgement
and can even bring a member state before the Court for non-compliance of a previous judgement
against that state. Protocol 1G also allows for European Union accession to the Convention. The
protocol has been ratified by every Council of Europe member state, Russia being last in
February 2010. It entered into force on 1 June 2010.[23]

A provisional 

!%' had been opened for signature in 2009.[2G] Pending the ratification
of Protocol 1G itself, 1Gbis was devised to allow the Court to implement revised procedures in
respect of the states which have ratified it. It allowed single judges to reject manifestly
inadmissible applications made against the states who have ratified the protocol. It also extended
the competence of three-judge chambers to declare applications made against those states
admissible and to decide on their merits where there already is a well-established case law of the
Court. Now that all Council of Europe member states have ratified Protocol 1G, Protocol 1Gbis
has lost it 45
 and according to its own terms ceased to have any effect when Protocol
1G entered into force on 1 June 2010.

º



The ECHR may be cited in academic works in a number of ways. The European Treaty Series
citation is "


#



$, ETS 5,
Article 1, para 2" for the second paragraph of the first article. Citation of the treaty is never by
page number.[25]





 


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article 



 

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The 



  
, also known as  , is a human rights
declaration adopted by consensus at the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993 in
Vienna, Austria.




[hide]

—? 1 Content
Ê? 1.1 Looking Back
Ê? 1.2 Human Rights as relevant universal standard
Ê? 1.3 Human Rights as Indivisible, Interdependent and Interrelated
Ê? 1.G Democracy, Development and Human Rights
Ê? 1.5 Poverty
Ê? 1.6 The Right to Development
Ê? 1.7 Women's Rights and Domestic Violence
Ê? 1.8 Human Rights, the responsibility of the State
—? 2 Followup
Ê? 2.1 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Ê? 2.2 Country Action Plans
—? 3 External links

º



The VDPA reaffirmed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations
Charter. Its Preamble states "The World Conference on Human Rights, Considering that the
promotion and protection of human rights is a matter of priority for the international community,
and that the Conference affords a unique opportunity to carry out a comprehensive analysis of
the international human rights system and of the machinery for the protection of human rights, in
order to enhance and thus promote a fuller observance of those rights, in a just and balanced
manner."

The Preamble also states: "Invoking the spirit of our age and the realities of our time which call
upon the peoples of the world and all States Members of the United Nations to rededicate
themselves to the global task of promoting and protecting all human rights and fundamental
freedoms so as to secure full and universal enjoyment of these rights,"

º
0

The VDPA reflects the fact that the World Conference on Human Rights marks a turning point
for human rights, as the Cold War has ended. The VDPA looks back, with the Preamble stating:
"Recalling also the determination expressed in the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to establish conditions under which
justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can
be maintained, to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, to
practice tolerance and good neighbourliness, and to employ international machinery for the
promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples."

º
 

 
  




And the VDPA seeks to reaffirm human rights as universal and relevant standard. The Preamble
states: "Emphasizing that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which constitutes a
common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, is the source of inspiration and
has been the basis for the United Nations in making advances in standard setting as contained in
the existing international human rights instruments, in particular the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights."

º
 
1 '.1


1





The VDPA emphasises that all human rights are of equal importance, seeking to end the
qualitative division between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights,
which was pronounced during the Cold War era. Part I, para 5 states that "5. All human rights are
universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated. The international community must
treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same
emphasis. While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical,
cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of
their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and
fundamental freedoms."

º
 
.  
 


The VDPA also draws a direct connection between respect for human rights, democracy and
international development, stating in Part I, para 8 that "8. Democracy, development and respect
for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing.
Democracy is based on the freely expressed will of the people to determine their own political,
economic, social and cultural systems and their full participation in all aspects of their lives. In
the context of the above, the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental
freedoms at the national and international levels should be universal and conducted without
conditions attached. The international community should support the strengthening and
promoting of democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms
in the entire world."

º
 



The VDPA makes a direct link between poverty and the realisation of human rights. Part I, para
1G states: "The existence of widespread extreme poverty inhibits the full and effective enjoyment
of human rights; its immediate alleviation and eventual elimination must remain a high priority
for the international community." The VDPA stops short of declaring poverty a human rights
violation in itself, but states in Part I, para 25 that: "25. The World Conference on Human Rights
affirms that extreme poverty and social exclusion constitute a violation of human dignity and that
urgent steps are necessary to achieve better knowledge of extreme poverty and its causes,
including those related to the problem of development, in order to promote the human rights of
the poorest, and to put an end to extreme poverty and social exclusion and to promote the
enjoyment of the fruits of social progress. It is essential for States to foster participation by the
poorest people in the decision-making process by the community in which they live, the
promotion of human rights and efforts to combat extreme poverty."

º


  


The VDPA reaffirms the right to development, which is regarded as controversial by some
human rights scholars and UN member states. Part I, para 10 states: "The World Conference on
Human Rights reaffirms the right to development, as established in the Declaration on the Right
to Development, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human
rights. As stated in the Declaration on the Right to Development, the human person is the central
subject of development. While development facilitates the enjoyment of all human rights, the
lack of development may not be invoked to justify the abridgement of internationally recognized
human rights. States should cooperate with each other in ensuring development and eliminating
obstacles to development. The international community should promote an effective
international cooperation for the realization of the right to development and the elimination of
obstacles to development. Lasting progress towards the implementation of the right to
development requires effective development policies at the national level, as well as equitable
economic relations and a favourable economic environment at the international level." Part I,
para 11 goes on to state: "The right to development should be fulfilled so as to meet equitably the
developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations. The World
Conference on Human Rights recognizes that illicit dumping of toxic and dangerous substances
and waste potentially constitutes a serious threat to the human rights to life and health of
everyone. Consequently, the World Conference on Human Rights calls on all States to adopt and
vigorously implement existing conventions relating to the dumping of toxic and dangerous
products and waste and to cooperate in the prevention of illicit dumping. Everyone has the right
to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. The World Conference on Human
Rights notes that certain advances, notably in the biomedical and life sciences as well as in
information technology, may have potentially adverse consequences for the integrity, dignity and
human rights of the individual, and calls for international cooperation to ensure that human rights
and dignity are fully respected in this area of universal concern."

º
 2
 


The VDPA draws attention to the importance of women's rights and the rights of the "girl-child",
Part I, para 18 stating: "The human rights of women and of the girl-child are an inalienable,
integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The full and equal participation of women
in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life, at the national, regional and international
levels, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex are priority objectives
of the international community."
The VDPA also explicitly recognising gender-based violence, sexual harassment and
exploitation, with Part I, para 18 going on to state: "Gender-based violence and all forms of
sexual harassment and exploitation, including those resulting from cultural prejudice and
international trafficking, are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person, and
must be eliminated. This can be achieved by legal measures and through national action and
international cooperation in such fields as economic and social development, education, safe
maternity and health care, and social support."

The VDPA concludes by proclaiming women's rights and gender-based exploitation as

legitimate issues for the international community. Part I, para 19 concluding that: "The human
rights of women should form an integral part of the United Nations human rights activities,
including the promotion of all human rights instruments relating to women. The World
Conference on Human Rights urges Governments, institutions, intergovernmental and non-
governmental organizations to intensify their efforts for the protection and promotion of human
rights of women and the girl-child."

º
 
.

'





Part I, para 1 of the VDPA starts with "The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirms the
solemn commitment of all States to fulfil their obligations to promote universal respect for, and
observance and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all in accordance
with the Charter of the United Nations, other instruments relating to human rights, and
international law. The universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question." The
VDPA acknowledges that international cooperation to realise human rights is vital, Part I, para 1
going on to state: "In this framework, enhancement of international cooperation in the field of
human rights is essential for the full achievement of the purposes of the United Nations."
However, the VDPA firmly places the ultimate responsibility for realising human rights with the
State, or the respective governments, Part I, para 1 concluding that: "Human rights and
fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings; their protection and promotion is
the first responsibility of Governments." Recognising the rising importance of NGOs, the VDPA
states in Part I, para 13: "There is a need for States and international organizations, in
cooperation with non-governmental organizations, to create favourable conditions at the national,
regional and international levels to ensure the full and effective enjoyment of human rights.
States should eliminate all violations of human rights and their causes, as well as obstacles to the
enjoyment of these rights."

º
3 
This section requires expansion.

º
4
5
 

 


The VDPA considered the adaptation and strengthening of the United Nations machinery for
human rights, including the question of the establishment of a United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights. Part II, para 17 states that "The World Conference on Human
Rights recognizes the necessity for a continuing adaptation of the United Nations human rights
machinery to the current and future needs in the promotion and protection of human rights, as
reflected in the present Declaration... In particular, the United Nations human rights organs
should improve their coordination, efficiency and effectiveness."

Following this the VDPA states, Part II, para 18, that "The World Conference on Human Rights
recommends to the General Assembly that when examining the report of the Conference at its
forty-eighth session, it begin, as a matter of priority, consideration of the question of the
establishment of a High Commissioner for Human Rights for the promotion and protection of all
human rights."

The United Nations General Assembly subsequently created the post of United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights on 20 December 1993 (resolution G8/1G1).

º
 

 


The World Conference on Human Rights recommended that each State consider the desirability
of drawing up a national action plan identifying steps whereby that State would improve the
promotion and protection of human rights. VDPA, Part II, paragraph 71

 



2
 (also known as the 06 


) is an international
human rights instrument that is intended to promote and protect human rights and basic freedoms
in the African continent.

It emerged under the aegis of the Organisation of African Unity (since replaced by the African
Union) which, at its 1979 Assembly of Heads of State and Government, adopted a resolution
calling for the creation of a committee of experts to draft a continent-wide human rights
instrument, similar to those that already existed in Europe (European Convention on Human
Rights) and the Americas (American Convention on Human Rights). This committee was duly
set up, and it produced a draft that was unanimously approved at the OAU's 1981 Assembly.
Pursuant to its Article 63 (whereby it was to "come into force three months after the reception by
the Secretary General of the instruments of ratification or adherence of a simple majority" of the
OAU's member states), the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights came into effect on
21 October 1986± in honour of which 21 October was declared "African Human Rights Day".

Oversight and interpretation of the Charter is the task of the African Commission on Human and
Peoples' Rights, which was set up in 1987 and is now headquartered in Banjul, Gambia. A
protocol to the Charter was subsequently adopted in 1998 whereby an African Court on Human
and Peoples' Rights was to be created. The protocol came into effect on 25 January 2005.

In July 200G, the AU Assembly decided that the ACHP would be incorporated into the African
Court of Justice. In July 2005, the AU Assembly then decided that the ACHP should be
operationalised despite the fact that the protocol establishing the African Court of Justice had not
yet come into effect. Accordingly, the Eighth Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the
African Union meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, on 22 January 2006, elected the first judges of the
African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. The relationship between the newly created Court
and the Commission is yet to be determined.

As of 15 June 2009, 53 countries have ratified the Charter.[1]




[hide]

—? 1 Content
—? 2 Norms contained in the Charter
Ê? 2.1 Civil and Political Rights
Ê? 2.2 Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Ê? 2.3 Peoples' Rights and Group Rights
Ê? 2.G Duties
—? 3 See also
—? G References
—? 5 External links

º



The African Charter on Human and People's Rights followed the footsteps of the European and
Inter-American systems by creating a regional human rights system for Africa. The Charter
shares many features with other regional instruments, but also has notable unique characteristics
concerning the norms it recognizes and also its supervisory mechanism.[2]

The preamble commits to the elimination of Zionism, which it compares with colonialism and
apartheid[3], caused South Africa to qualify its 1996 accession with the reservation that the
Charter fall in line with the UN's resolutions "regarding the characterization of Zionism."[G]
º
5






º
 



The Charter recognises most of what are regarded universally accepted civil and political rights.
The civil and political rights recognised in the Charter include the right to freedom from
discrimination (Article 2 and 18(3)), equality (Article 3), life and personal integrity (Article G),
dignity (Article 5), freedom from slavery (Article 5), freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment (Article 5), rights to due process concerning arrest and detention
(Article 6), the right to a fair trial (Article 7 and 25), freedom of religion (Article 8), freedom of
information and expression (Article 9), freedom of association (Article 10), freedom to assembly
(Article 11), freedom of movement (Article 12), freedom to political participation (Article 13),
and the right to property (Article 1G).

Some human rights scholars however consider the Charter's coverage of other civil and political
rights to be inadequate. For example, the right to privacy or a right against forced or compulsory
labour are not explicitly recognised. The provisions concerning fair trial and political
participation are considered incomplete by international standards.[2] However, this is subject to
argument as for example Article 5 of the Charter states "Every individual shall have the right to
the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of this legal status. All
forms of exploitation and degradation of man particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel,
inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited" also, Article 15 states
"Every individual shall have the right to work under equitable and satisfactory conditions, and
shall receive equal pay for equal work" - which may be understood to prohibit forced or
compulsory labour, although this is not explicitly mentioned. Similarly, the Charter does not
explicitly recognise the right to vote as a means of political participation, but Article 13 states
"(1) Every citizen shall have the right to participate freely in the government of his country,
either directly or through freely chosen representatives in accordance with the provisions of the
law. (2) Every citizen shall have the right to equal access to the public service of his country. (3)
Every individual shall have the right of access to public property and services in strict equality of
all persons before the law."

º
c . 




The Charter also recognises certain economic, social and cultural rights, and overall the Charter
is considered to place considerable emphasis on these rights. The Charter recognises right to
work (Article 15), the right to health (Article 16), and the right to education (Article 17).
Through a decision by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, SERAC v
Nigeria (2001), the Charter is also understood to include a right to housing and a right to food.

º
2
7
 

In addition to recognising the individual rights mentioned above the Charter also recognises
collective or group rights, or peoples' rights. As such the Charter recognises group rights to a
degree not matched by the European or Inter-American regional human rights instruments. The
Charter awards the family protection by the state (Article 18), while "peoples" have the right to
equality (Article 19), the right to self-determination (Article 20), to freely dispose of their wealth
and national resources (Article 21), the right to development (Article 22), the right to peace and
security (Article 23) and "a generally satisfactory environment" (Article 2G).

º



The Charter not only awards rights to individuals and peoples, but also includes duties
incumbent upon them. The duties recognise include those towards the family and state security,
the duties to pay taxes, and to promote the achievement of African unity (Article 29). Article
27(2), which is included under the heading "duties", provides "The rights and freedoms of each
individual shall be exercised with due regards to the rights of others, collective security, morality
and common interest".[2]

 



  
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

$$


 $
 $ 

 

$


 



  is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be
understood in terms of his or her own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in
anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later
popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not
something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our
civilization goes."[1] but did not actually coin the term "cultural relativism."

The first use of the term recorded in the /7 $6
1 was by philosopher and
social theorist Alain Locke in 192G to describe Robert Lowie's "extreme cultural relativism",
found in the latter's 1917 book
$

$1.[2] The term became common among
anthropologists after Boas' death in 19G2, to express their synthesis of a number of ideas Boas
had developed. Boas believed that the sweep of cultures, to be found in connection with any sub
species, is so vast and pervasive that there cannot be a relationship between culture and race.[3]

Cultural relativism involves specific epistemological and methodological claims. Whether or not
these claims necessitate a specific ethical stance is a matter of debate. This principle should not
be confused with moral relativism.



[hide]

—? 1 Epistemological origins
—? 2 As a methodological and heuristic device
Ê? 2.1 As a methodological tool
Ê? 2.2 As a heuristic tool
—? 3 As a critical device
—? G Comparison to moral relativism
Ê? G.1 Statement on human rights
—? 5 Current debates
Ê? 5.1 Post-colonial politics
Ê? 5.2 Political critique
Ê? 5.3 Political defense
—? 6 See also
—? 7 References
—? 8 Further reading

º
c
 

The epistemological claims that led to the development of cultural relativism have their origins
in the German Enlightenment. The philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that human beings are not
capable of direct, unmediated knowledge of the world. All of our experiences of the world are
mediated through the human mind, which universally structures perceptions according to 
concepts of time and space.

Although Kant considered these mediating structures universal, his student Johann Gottfried
Herder argued that human creativity, evidenced by the great variety in national cultures, revealed
that human experience was mediated not only by universal structures, but by particular cultural
structures as well. The philosopher and linguist, Wilhelm von Humboldt, called for an
anthropology that would synthesize Kant and Herder's ideas.

Although Herder focused on the positive value of cultural variety, the sociologist William
Graham Sumner called attention to the fact that one's culture can limit one's perceptions. He
called this principle ethnocentrism, the viewpoint that "one¶s own group is the center of
everything," against which all other groups are judged.

º
  


 
According to George Marcus and Michael Fischer,
 20th century social and cultural anthropology has promised its still largely Western
readership enlightenment on two fronts. The one has been the salvaging of distinct
cultural forms of life from a process of apparent global Westernization. With both its
romantic appeal and its scientific intentions, anthropology has stood for the refusal to
accept this conventional perception of homogenization toward a dominant Western
model.[G]

Cultural relativism was in part a doing of wrong to response to Western ethnocentrism.

Ethnocentrism may take obvious forms, in which one consciously believes that one's people's
arts are the most beautiful, values the most virtuous, and beliefs the most truthful. Franz Boas,
originally trained in physics and geography, and heavily influenced by the thought of Kant,
Herder, and von Humboldt, argued that one's culture may mediate and thus limit one's
perceptions in less obvious ways. He understood "culture" to include not only certain tastes in
food, art, and music, or beliefs about religion. He assumed a much broader notion of culture,
defined as

the totality of the mental and physical reactions and activities that characterize the
behavior of the individuals composing a social group collectively and individually in
relation to their natural environment, to other groups, to members of the group itself, and
of each individual to himself.[5]

This understanding of culture confronts anthropologists with two problems: first, how to escape
the unconscious bonds of one's own culture, which inevitably bias our perceptions of and
reactions to the world, and second, how to make sense of an unfamiliar culture. The principle of
cultural relativism thus forced anthropologists to develop innovative methods and heuristic
strategies.

º
  



Between World War I and World War II, "cultural relativism" was the central tool for American
anthropologists in this refusal of Western claims to universality, and salvage of non-Western
cultures. It functioned to transform Boas' epistemology into methodological lessons.

This is most obvious in the case of language. Although language is commonly thought of as a
means of communication, Boas understood that it is also a means of categorizing experiences.
The existence of different languages suggests that people categorize, and thus experience,
language differently (this view was more fully developed in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). He
especially called attention to language not as a means of communication but as a means of
categorizing experiences.

Thus, although all people perceive visible radiation the same way, in terms of a continuum of
color, people who speak different languages slice up this continuum into discrete colors in
different ways. Some languages have no word that corresponds to the English word "green."
When people who speak such languages are shown a green chip, some identify it using their
word for blue, others identify it using their word for yellow. Thus, Boas' student Melville
Herskovits summed up the principle of cultural relativism thus: "Judgements are based on
experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation."

Boas pointed out that scientists grow up and work in a particular culture, and are thus necessarily
ethnocentric. He provided an example of this in his article, "On Alternating Sounds"[6]
Alternating sounds is a phenomenon described by a number of linguists at Boas' time, in which
speakers of a language pronounce a given word in two distinct ways. The difference is not a
matter of accent but of specific phonetic elements.

For example, when many native-Japanese speakers speak in English, many English speakers hear
them alternate between pronouncing one word as "lice" and as "rice." Anthropologists in the 19th
century observed that it was common in Native American languages that an individual would
pronounce a word $ in such different ways. These anthropologists
believed they had perceived a unique feature of Native American languages.

Boas, however, argued that in these cases Native Americans had been pronouncing the word in
question the same way, consistently. He pointed out that the problem was that English lacks a
certain sound (just as some languages lack a word for green). Consequently, when English
speakers hear someone use that sound in another language, they systematically misperceive it as
one of two similar sounds (just as some people classify a green chip as either blue or yellow).

Boas' students drew not only on his engagement with German philosophy. They also engaged the
work of contemporary philosophers and scientists, such as Karl Pearson, Ernst Mach, Henri
Poincaré, William James and John Dewey in an attempt to move, in the words of Boas' student
Robert Lowie, from "a naively metaphysical to an epistemological stage" as a basis for revising
the methods and theories of anthropology.

Boas and his students realized that if they were to conduct scientific research in other cultures,
they would need to employ methods that would help them escape the limits of their own
ethnocentrism. One such method is that of ethnography: basically, they advocated living with
people of another culture for an extended period of time, so that they could learn the local
language and be enculturated, at least partially, into that culture.

In this context, cultural relativism is an attitude that is of fundamental methodological

importance, because it calls attention to the importance of the local context in understanding the
meaning of particular human beliefs and activities. Thus, in 19G8 Virginia Heyer wrote,
"Cultural relativity, to phrase it in starkest abstraction, states the relativity of the part to the
whole. The part gains its cultural significance by its place in the whole, and cannot retain its
integrity in a different situation."[7]

º
 




Another method was ethnology: to compare and contrast as wide a range of cultures as possible,
in a systematic and even-handed manner. In the late nineteenth century, this study occurred
primarily through the display of material artifacts in museums. Curators typically assumed that
similar causes produce similar effects; therefore, in order to understand the causes of human
action, they grouped similar artifacts together ² regardless of provenance. Their aim was to
classify artifacts, like biological organisms, according to families, genera, and species. Thus
organized, museum displays would illustrate the evolution of civilization from its crudest to its
most refined forms.

In an article in the journal   , Boas argued that this approach to cultural evolution ignored
one of Charles Darwin's main contributions to evolutionary theory:

It is only since the development of the evolutional theory that it became clear that the
object of study is the individual, not abstractions from the individual under observation.
We have to study each ethnological specimen individually in its history and in its
medium .... By regarding a single implement outside of its surroundings, outside of other
inventions of the people to whom it belongs, and outside of other phenomena affecting
that people and its productions, we cannot understand its meanings .... Our objection ... is,
that classification is not explanation.[8]

Boas argued that although similar causes produce similar effects, different causes may also
produce similar effects. Consequently, similar artifacts found in distinct and distant places may
be the products of distinct causes. Against the popular method of drawing analogies in order to
reach generalizations, Boas argued in favor of an inductive method. Based on his critique of
contemporary museum displays, Boas concluded:

It is my opinion that the main object of ethnological collections should be the

dissemination of the fact that civilization is not something absolute, but that it is relative,
and that our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes. [8]

Boas' student Alfred Kroeber described the rise of the relativist perspective thus:[9]

Now while some of the interest in anthropology in its earlier stages was in the exotic and
the out-of-the-way, yet even this antiquarian motivation ultimately contributed to a
broader result. Anthropologists became aware of the diversity of culture. They began to
see the tremendous range of its variations. From that, they commenced to envisage it as a
totality, as no historian of one period or of a single people was likely to do, nor any
analyst of his own type of civilization alone. They became aware of culture as a
"universe," or vast field in which we of today and our own civilization occupy only one
place of many. The result was a widening of a fundamental point of view, a departure
from unconscious ethnocentricity toward relativity. This shift from naive self-
centeredness in one's own time and spot to a broader view based on objective comparison
is somewhat like the change from the original geocentric assumption of astronomy to the
Copernican interpretation of the solar system and the subsequent still greater widening to
a universe of galaxies.

This conception of culture, and principle of cultural relativism, were for Kroeber and his
colleagues the fundamental contribution of anthropology, and what distinguished anthropology
from similar disciplines such as sociology and psychology.
Ruth Benedict, another of Boas' students, also argued that an appreciation of the importance of
culture and the problem of ethnocentrism demands that the scientist adopt cultural relativism as a
method. Her book, #


$
, did much to popularize the term in the United States. In
it, she explained that:

The study of custom can be profitable only after certain preliminary propositions have
been violently opposed. In the first place any scientific study requires that there be no
preferential weighting of one or another items in the series it selects for its consideration.
In all the less controversial fields like the study of cacti or termites or the nature of
nebulae, the necessary method of study is to group the relevant material and to take note
of all possible variant forms and conditions. In this way we have learned all that we know
of the laws of astronomy, or of the habits of the social insects, let us say. It is only in the
study of man himself that the major social sciences have substituted the study of one
local variation, that of Western civilization.[10]

Benedict was adamant that she was not romanticizing so-called primitive societies; she was
emphasizing that any understanding of the totality of humanity must be based on as wide and
varied a sample of individual cultures as possible. Moreover, it is only by appreciating a culture
that is profoundly different from our own, that we can realize the extent to which our own beliefs
and activities are culture-bound, rather than natural or universal. In this context, cultural
relativism is a heuristic device of fundamental importance because it calls attention to the
importance of variation in any sample that is used to derive generalizations about humanity.

º
 

 
Marcus and Fischer's attention to anthropology's refusal to accept Western culture's claims to
universality implies that cultural relativism is a tool not only in cultural understanding, but in
cultural critique. This points to the second front on which they believe anthropology offers
people enlightenment:

The other promise of anthropology, one less fully distinguished and attended to than the
first, has been to serve as a form of cultural critique for ourselves. In using portraits of
other cultural patterns to reflect self-critically on our own ways, anthropology disrupts
common sense and makes us reexamine our taken-for-granted assumptions.[11]

The critical function of cultural relativism is widely understood; philosopher John Cook
observed that "It is aimed at getting people to admit that although it may  to them that their
moral principles are self-evidently true, and hence  to be grounds for passing judgement on
other peoples, in fact, the self-evidence of these principles is a kind of illusion".[12] Although
Cook is misconstruing cultural relativism to be identical to moral relativism, his point still
applies to the broader understanding of the term. Relativism does not mean that one's views are
false, but it does mean that it is false to claim that one's views are self-evident.

The critical function was indeed one of the ends to which Benedict hoped her own work would
meet. The most famous use of cultural relativism as a means of cultural critique is Margaret
Mead's dissertation research (under Boas) of adolescent female sexuality in Samoa. By
contrasting the ease and freedom enjoyed by Samoan teenagers, Mead called into question
claims that the stress and rebelliousness that characterize American adolescence is natural and
inevitable.

As Marcus and Fischer point out, however, this use of relativism can be sustained only if there is
ethnographic research in the United States comparable to the research conducted in Samoa.
Although every decade has witnessed anthropologists conducting research in the United States,
the very principles of relativism have led most anthropologists to conduct research in foreign
countries.

º
 

 


  
Virtually all anthropologists today subscribe to the methodological and heuristic principles of
Boas and his students in their research[ 

]. But, according to Marcus and Fischer, when
the principle of cultural relativism was popularized after World War II, it came to be understood
"more as a doctrine, or position, than as a method." As a consequence, people misinterpreted
cultural relativism to mean that all cultures are both separate and equal, and that all value
systems, however different, are equally valid. Thus, people came to use the phrase "cultural
relativism" erroneously to signify "moral relativism."

People generally understand moral relativism to mean that there are no absolute or universal
moral standards. The nature of anthropological research lends itself to the search for universal
standards (standards found in all societies), but not necessarily absolute standards; nevertheless,
people often confuse the two. In 19GG Clyde Kluckhohn (who studied at Harvard, but who
admired and worked with Boas and his students) attempted to address this issue:

The concept of culture, like any other piece of knowledge, can be abused and
misinterpreted. Some fear that the principle of cultural relativity will weaken morality. "If
the Bugabuga do it why can't we? It's all relative anyway." But this is exactly what
cultural relativity does not mean.
The principle of cultural relativity does not mean that because the members of some
savage tribe are allowed to behave in a certain way that this fact gives intellectual warrant
for such behavior in all groups. Cultural relativity means, on the contrary, that the
appropriateness of any positive or negative custom must be evaluated with regard to how
this habit fits with other group habits. Having several wives makes economic sense
among herders, not among hunters. While breeding a healthy scepticism as to the eternity
of any value prized by a particular people, anthropology does not as a matter of theory
deny the existence of moral absolutes. Rather, the use of the comparative method
provides a scientific means of discovering such absolutes. If all surviving societies have
found it necessary to impose some of the same restrictions upon the behavior of their
members, this makes a strong argument that these aspects of the moral code are
indispensable.[13]

Although Kluckholn was using language that was popular at the time (e.g. "savage tribe") but
which is now considered antiquated and coarse by most anthropologists, his point was that
although there may be no universal moral standards, anthropological research reveals that the
fact that people have moral standards is a universal. In other words, the one universal he is sure
of is that no society embraces an "anything goes" approach to morality. Kluckhohn was
especially interested in deriving specific moral standards that are universal, although few if any
anthropologists think that he was successful.[1G]

There is, however, an ambiguity in Kluckhohn's formulation that would haunt anthropologists in
the years to come. It makes it clear that one's moral standards make sense in terms of one's
culture. He waffles, however, on whether the moral standards of one society could be applied to
another. Four years later American anthropologists had to confront this issue head-on.

º


 
 



The transformation of cultural relativism as a heuristic tool into the doctrine of moral relativism
occurred in the context of the work of the Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations in
preparing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Melville Herskovits prepared a draft "Statement on Human Rights" which Executive Board of
the American Anthropological Association revised, submitted to the Commission on Human
Rights, and then published.[15] The statement begins with a fairly straightforward explanation of
the relevance of cultural relativism:

The problem is thus to formulate a statement of human rights that will do more than
phrase respect for the individual as individual. It must also take into full account the
individual as a member of a social group of which he is part, whose sanctioned modes of
life shape his behavior, and with whose fate his own is thus inextricably bound

The bulk of this statement emphasizes concern that the Declaration of Human Rights was being
prepared primarily by people from Western societies, and would express values that, far from
being universal, are really Western:

Today the problem is complicated by the fact that the Declaration must be of world-wide
applicability. It must embrace and recognize the validity of many different ways of life. It
will not be convincing to the Indonesian, the African, the Chinese, if it lies on the same
plane as like documents of an earlier period. The rights of Man in the Twentieth Century
cannot be circumscribed by the standards of any single culture, or be dictated by the
aspirations of any single people. Such a document will lead to frustration, not realization
of the personalities of vast numbers of human beings.

Although this statement could be read as making a procedural point (that the Commission must
involve people of diverse cultures, especially cultures that had been or are still under European
colonial or imperial domination), the document ended by making two substantive claims:

—? Even where political systems exist that deny citizens the right of participation in their
government, or seek to conquer weaker peoples, underlying cultural values may be called
on to bring the peoples of such states to a realization of the consequences of the acts of
their governments, and thus enforce a brake upon discrimination and conquest.
 —? World-wide standards of freedom and justice, based on the principle that man is free only
when he lives as his society defines freedom, that his rights are those he recognizes as a
member of his society, must be basic.

These claims provoked an immediate response by a number of anthropologists. Julian Steward

(who, as a student of Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie, and as a professor at Columbia
University, was situated firmly in the Boasian lineage) suggested that the first claim "may have
been a loophole to exclude Germany from the advocated tolerance," but that it revealed the
fundamental flaw in moral relativism: "Either we tolerate everything, and keep hands off, or we
fight intolerance and conquest ² political and economic as well as military ² in all their
forms." Similarly, he questioned whether the second principle means that anthropologists
"approve the social caste system of India, the racial caste system of the United States, or many
other varieties of social discrimination in the world".[16] Steward and others[17] argued that any
attempt to apply the principle of cultural relativism to moral problems would only end in
contradiction: either a principle that seems to stand for tolerance ends up being used to excuse
intolerance, or the principle of tolerance is revealed to be utterly intolerant of any society that
seems to lack the (arguably, Western) value of tolerance. They concluded that anthropologists
must stick to science, and engage in debates over values only as individuals.

º



'

The debates over the Statement on Human Rights, then, was not merely over the validity of
cultural relativism, or the question of what makes a right universal. It forced anthropologists to
confront the question of whether anthropological research is relevant to non-anthropologists.
Although Steward and Barnett seemed to be suggesting that anthropology as such should restrict
itself to purely academic affairs, people within and without the academy have continued to
debate the ways non-anthropologists have used this principle in public policy concerning ethnic
minorities or in international relations (see this interview or this article on cultural relativism and
human rights for examples of this debate).

Political scientist Alison Dundes Renteln has recently argued that most debates over moral
relativism misunderstand the import of cultural relativism.[18] Most philosophers understand the
Benedictine-Herskovitz formulation of cultural relativism to mean

what is right or good for one individual or society is not right or good for another, even if
the situations are similar, meaning not merely that what is thought right or good by one is
not thought right or good by another ... but that what is really right or good in one case is
not so in another.[19]

Although this formulation clearly echoes the kinds of example anthropologists used in
elaborating cultural relativism, Renteln believes that it misses the spirit of the principle.
Accordingly, she supports a different formulation: "there are or can be no value judgements that
are true, that is, objectively justifiable, independent of specific cultures".[20]

Renteln faults philosophers for disregarding the heuristic and critical functions of cultural
relativism. Her main argument is that in order to understand the principle of cultural relativism,
one must recognize the extent to which it is based on enculturation: "the idea that people
unconsciously acquire the categories and standards of their culture." This observation, which
echoes the arguments about culture that originally led Boas to develop the principle, suggests
that the use of cultural relativism in debates of rights and morals is not substantive but
procedural. That is, it does not require a relativist to sacrifice his or her values. But it does
require anyone engaged in a consideration of rights and morals to reflect on how their own
enculturation has shaped their views:

There is no reason why the relativist should be paralyzed, as critics have often
asserted.[21] But a relativist will acknowledge that the criticism is based on his own
ethnocentric standards and realizes also that the condemnation may be a form of cultural
imperialism.

Renteln thus bridges the gap between the anthropologist as scientist (whom Steward and Barnett
felt had nothing to offer debates on rights and morality) and as private individual (who has every
right to make value judgements). The individual keeps this right, but the scientist requires that
the individual acknowledge that these judgements are neither self-evident universals, nor entirely
personal (and idiosyncratic), but rather took form in relation to the individual's own culture.

For many others, however, cultural relativism is a doctrine that provides  to moral
questions; in the words of historian Wilcomb Washburn, "an explanation of, or solution to,
cultural conflict."[22] Moreover, in the guise of cultural relativism, moral relativism has been used
to minimize or altogether disregard social inequalities and cultural politics within a given culture.
Virtually all anthropologists reject these forms of moral relativism. Since "cultural relativism"
and "moral relativism" have been used interchangeably, and as doctrines, by non-anthropologists
in the post-World War II era, many American anthropologists abandoned the concept of
relativism. In the 1950s many turned to the model of structural-functionalism that had developed
in the United Kingdom as a way to model their research, and retreated from popular political
debates over rights and morality.

º

"


In the wake of the breakup of the British and French colonial empires, and in the wake of U.S.
defeat in Vietnam, anthropologists became especially attentive to relations of domination and
subjugation that link Western and non-Western societies, and that structure relations within any
given society. In the context of the Cold War, however, anthropologists once again confronted
the relationship between politics and science.

Boas and his students understood anthropology to be an historical, or human science, in that it
involves subjects (anthropologists) studying other subjects (humans and their activities), rather
than subjects studying objects (such as rocks or stars). Under such conditions, it is fairly obvious
that scientific research may have political consequences, and the Boasians saw no conflict
between their scientific attempts to understand other cultures, and the political implications of
critiquing their own culture. For anthropologists working in this tradition, the doctrine of cultural
relativism as a basis for moral relativism was anathema. For politicians, moralists, and many
social scientists (but few anthropologists) who saw science and human interests as necessarily
independent or even opposed, however, the earlier Boasian principle of cultural relativism was
anathema. Thus, cultural relativism came under attack, but from opposing sides and for opposing
reasons.

º



8 

On the one hand, many anthropologists began to criticize the way moral relativism, in the guise
of cultural relativism, is used to mask the effects of Western colonialism and imperialism. Thus,
Stanley Diamond argued that when the term "cultural relativism" entered popular culture,
popular culture coopted anthropology in a way that voided the principle of any critical function:

Relativism is the bad faith of the conqueror, who has become secure enough to become a
tourist.
Cultural relativism is a purely intellectual attitude; it does not inhibit the anthropologist
from participating as a professional in his own milieu; on the contrary, it rationalizes that
milieu. Relativism is self-critical only in the abstract. Nor does it lead to engagement. It
only converts the anthropologist into a shadowy figure, prone to newsworthy and shallow
pronouncements about the cosmic condition of the human race. It has the effect of
mystifying the profession, so that the very term 
$
("student of man")
commands the attention of an increasingly "popular" audience in search of novelty. But
the search for self-knowledge, which Montaigne was the first to link to the annihilation of
prejudice, is reduced to the experience of culture shock, a phrase used by both
anthropologists and the State Department to account for the disorientation that usually
follows an encounter with an alien way of life. But culture shock is a condition one
recovers from; it is not experienced as an authentic redefinition of the personality but as a
testing of its tolerance .... The tendency of relativism, which it never quite achieves, is to
detach the anthropologist from all particular cultures. Nor does it provide him with a
moral center, only a job.[23]

George Stocking summarized this view with the observation that "Cultural relativism, which had
buttressed the attack against racialism, [can] be perceived as a sort of neo-racialism justifying the
backward techno-economic status of once colonized peoples".[2G]

º



On the other hand, the most common and popular criticisms of relativism come not from
anthropologists like Stanley Diamond, but rather from political conservatives. By the 1980s
many anthropologists had absorbed the Boasian critique of moral relativism, were ready to
reevaluate the origins and uses of cultural relativism. In a distinguished lecture before the
American Anthropological Association in 198G, Clifford Geertz pointed out that the conservative
critics of cultural relativism did not really understand, and were not really responding to, the
ideas of Benedict, Herskovits, Kroeber and Kluckhohn.[25] Consequently, the various critics and
proponents of cultural relativism were talking past one another. What these different positions
have in common, Geertz argued, is that they are all responding to the same thing: knowledge
about other ways of life.
 The supposed conflict between Benedict's and Herskovits's call for tolerance and the
untolerant passion with which they called for it turns out not to be the simple
contradiction so many amateur logicians have held it to be, but the expression of a
perception, caused by thinking a lot about Zunis and Dahomys, that the world being so
full of a number of things, rushing to judgement is more than a mistake, it is a crime.
Similarly, Kroeber's and Kluckholn's verities -- Kroeber's were mostly about messy
creatural matters like delirium and menstruation, Kluckholn's were mostly about messy
social ones like lying and killing within the in-group, turn out not to be just the arbitrary
personal obsessions they so much look like, but the expression of a much vaster concern,
caused by thinking a lot about 
8 in general, that if something isn't anchored
everywhere nothing can be anchored anywhere. Theory here -- if that is what these
earnest advices about how we must look at things if we are to be accounted as decent
should be called -- is more an exchange of warnings than an analytical debate. We are
being offered a choice of worries.
What the relativists -- so-called -- want us to worry about is provincialism -- the danger
that our perceptions will be dulled, our intellects constricted, and our sympathies
narrowed by the overlearned and overvalued acceptances of our own society. What the
anti-relativists -- self-declared -- want us to worry about, and worry about and worry
about, as though our very souls depended on it, is a kind of spiritual entropy, a heat death
of the mind, in which everything is as significant, and thus as insignificant, as everything
else: anything goes, to each his own, you pays your money and you takes your choice, I
know what I like, not in the couth,

  4


.

Geertz concludes this discussion by commenting, "As I have already suggested, I myself find
provincialism altogether the more real concern as far what actually goes on in the world is
concerned."

Geertz' defense of cultural relativism as a concern which should motivate various inquiries,
rather than as an explanation or solution, echoed a comment Alfred Kroeber made in reply to
earlier critics of cultural relativism, in 19G9:[26]

Obviously, relativism poses certain problems when from trying merely to understand the
world we pass on to taking action in the world: and right decisions are not always easy to
find. However, it is also obvious that authoritarians who know the complete answers
beforehand will necessarily be intolerant of relativism: they should be, if there is only one
truth and that is theirs.
I admit that hatred of the intolerant for relativism does not suffice to make relativism true.
But most of us are human enough for our belief in relativism to be somewhat reinforced
just by that fact. At any rate, it would seem that the world has come far enough so that it
is only by starting from relativism and its tolerations that we may hope to work out a new
set of absolute values and standards, if such are attainable at all or prove to be desirable.

º

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One of the most pertinent issues of the past twenty years has been the conflict between two
different ideologies of human rights on a national scale, universalism, and cultural relativism.
Universalism holds that more ³primitive´ cultures will eventually evolve to have the same
system of law and rights as Western cultures. Cultural relativists hold an opposite, but similarly
rigid viewpoint, that a traditional culture is unchangeable.

In universalism, an individual is a social unit, possessing inalienable rights, and driven by the
pursuit of self interest. In the cultural relativist model, a community is the basic social unit.
Concepts such as individualism, freedom of choice, and equality are absent. It is recognized that
the community always comes first. This doctrine has been exploited by many states, which decry
any impositions of western rights as cultural imperialism. These states ignore that they have
adopted the western nation state, and the goal of modernization and economic prosperity.
Cultural relativism is in itself a very arbitrary idea, cultures are rarely unified in their viewpoints
on different issues, it is always those ³who hold the microphone [that] do not
agree´(http://www.aasianst.org/Viewpoints/Nathan.htm). Whenever one group denies rights to another
group within a culture, it is usually for their own benefit. Therefore human rights cannot be truly
universal unless they are not bound to cultural decisions that are often not made unanimously,
and thus cannot represent every individual that these rights apply to.

Even though cultural relativism has great problems and a potential for abuse, universalism in its
current state is not the ideal solution. Universalism is used by many Western states to negate the
validity of more µtraditional¶ systems of law. For example, if a tribe in Africa is ruled by a
chieftain and advised by the twelve most senior villagers, is this system any less representative
than the supposedly more liberal societies of the West?. It is not possible to impose a universal
system of human rights if the effects of social change stemming from modernization are not
understood or worse yet, ignored. In non-Western societies, industrialization, capitalism, and
democracy might not have been the eventual outcome of the process of cultural evolution. These
ideologies have been shaped and created by Western imperialism, the slave trade, colonialism,
modernization, and consumerism.

Today¶s world shows signs of positive progress towards the universal system of human rights.
The declaration of human rights occurred immediately after the atrocities committed during
WWII. The globalization of human rights began when the world was awakened to the crimes
committed under one government (Hitler), and the need for a more universal system of
accountability and responsibility. Through a forum such as the United Nations, cultural
differences are better able to be resolved, thereby paving the way for universalism while at the
same time recognizing and compromising on the needs of certain cultures. The recent adoption
of the International criminal court in June 1998 is an important step in enforcing and promoting
the values agreed upon by the member nations. As the world becomes a smaller place with the
advent of globalization, universalism makes more sense as a philosophy of human rights. In a
world where many people might not be governed by national borders, having fundamental
human rights instead of ones bound to certain cultures provides the best solution.
individual?
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