Human Rights: Universality vs. Regionalism

Human Rights: Universality vs. Regionalism Jalal Naji Abstract The basic idea of the existence of certain rights that human beings are entitled to has been present, in some form or another, throughout the history of mankind long before their universal recognition and codification in 1948. The revolutionary work of the United Nations in adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 was the coronation and completion of all the earlier attempts of mankind in identifying the safeguards of humanity. Of course, the current shape, structure and context of international modern-day human rights never existed on the international sphere before 1948 as all the earlier efforts to identify human rights can be characterized as sporadic, localized, flawed, incomprehensive and even discriminatory as they only recognised certain rights to particular categories of people, such as ascribing rights only for citizens, for believers of a religion, or only for freemen and aristocrats. Conversely, UDHR's human rights standards are ascribed to everyone without discrimination. The foundation of international human rights is premised on the universality concept which indicates that all human beings are equal and that human rights are universally enjoyed by all mankind without discrimination. However, this majestic..