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In Conclusion

Human Rights Dialogue 1.7 (Winter 1996): "New Issues in East Asian Human Rights"

December 5, 1996

This is part of a report of the Carnegie Council's workshop, "New Issues in East Asian Human Rights," held at Seoul National University in Korea from October 2-5, 1996.

Does globalization suggest "forced modernization"—based on industrial-oriented growth and the rule of law and democracy? If so, will homogenization of institutions and practices ineluctably lead to the homogenization of culture, resulting in one secular, individualistic society? The outcome of the workshop suggests that the interaction between local cultures, local power structures, and globalization can lead to the cultural exchange and reflection needed to produce, in Charles Taylor's words, "more than one modernity." Therefore, one of the challenges for international human rights is a greater understanding of the dynamics of changing power structures and values within Asian societies. This analysis, said Chandra Muzzafar, is necessary "to shed light on dynamics central to the [human rights] debate: individual and community, rights and responsibilities, authority and freedom, and the relationships between them."

The discussion of new issues in East Asian human rights suggests the pitfalls of conceiving rights too much as a "universal, indivisible, and interdependent" package born of the desire in the immediate post–Cold War era to patch up old divisions. While attesting to the importance and increasing prominence of rights language and logic, the workshop raised salient social problems whose complexity challenges static conceptualizations of indivisibility and universality. Furthermore, while globalization has unleashed many of the new human rights claims and abuses, it also has created an impetus for the reevaluation of local cultures, weakening particularistic cultural claims to exemption from human rights practices.

As we move into the twenty-first century and the Cold War fades into history, a political space appears to have opened for greater reflection on the language and logic of rights embedded in international instruments. There is before us the potential to broaden the rights discourse and strengthen rights implementation by acknowledging crosscutting rights issues and the diverse cultural contexts of East Asia and beyond.

About Human Rights Dialogue

Human Rights Dialogue promotes a global discussion of human rights ideas and practices by presenting firsthand accounts of human rights issues as they arise within specific real-life contexts. In so doing, it helps to clarify the significant and ongoing evolution that is taking place within the human rights movement to make the human rights framework more relevant and effective in addressing the social, economic, and political challenges of the twenty-first century.

The entire publication is online, or you may purchase individual print copies.

Series One (1993–1998)examines all sides of the Asian values debate—the argument that Asian cultural values imply different human rights standards and priorities from those in the West.

Series Two(2000–2005)addresses the problem of the “human rights box”—the constraints that have enabled the human rights framework to gain currency among elites while limiting its advance among the most vulnerable. Specifically, the essays aim to locate the barriers to greater public legitimacy of human rights and to demonstrate how those barriers can be overcome.