000			02432nam a2200229Ia 4500
999			_c75873 _d75873
005			20220804160709.0
008			200204s9999 xx 000 0 und d
020			_a9780195679489
082			_a341.481 SHA
100			_a"Sharma, Arvind"
245		0	_aAre human rights Western? : a contribution to the dialogue of civilization
245		0	_nIB
260			_aNew Delhi
260			_bOUP
260			_c2006
300			_a289p.
365			_b 575.00
365			_dRS
520			_aThis book attempts to examine the assumptions that human rights are Western, that Westerners have ‘their own concept of human rights’, and that ‘Western ideas of human rights have dominated international discourse’. If Westerners have their own concept of human rights, and if they are ‘human’ rights at the same time, then the following question arises: In precisely what way are they Western? And if they were in some sense Western in 1948, are they still so in 2005? The book is organized as follows. Part I presents arguments which tend to claim that human rights are Western on the basis of their historical background. Part II focuses on arguments based on the secular basis of human rights. Part III engages the economic dimension of the issue, with the rise of capitalism and its role in the context of human rights constituting the distinguishing feature of this dimension. The arguments in Part IV involve concepts of universality, rationality, philosophy, and ethics, each in turn providing the basis for a set of arguments. Part V presents arguments in which the claim that human rights are Western is associated with the concept of modernity. Part VI comprises arguments regarding the alleged Westernness of human rights in which the religious element plays a major role. The experience of the non-Western world in relation to the West, as characterized by colonialism, imperialism, racism, and parochialism, constitutes a natural grouping by itself and forms Part VII of the book. Part VIII presents arguments that take aim at the Westernness of human rights, without necessarily resorting to larger frames of references which characterized the preceding arguments. Finally, Part IX brings together arguments which are related to the institutional dimension of the human rights discourse as distinguished from the ideological and other dimensions of the discourse.
650			_aHuman rights
942			_cB _2ddc