Human Rights After Faith - An Introduction to the 'Cultures of Human Rights' Symposium

Abstract

The symposium articles in this edition of the Melbourne Journal of International Law are drawn from a workshop on the theme of 'The Cultures of Human Rights', held at Melbourne Law School in July 2005. The workshop was concerned with the question of how human rights encounter other modes of thought or ways of being, and with the effects of naming this encounter as one between a universal law and a particular culture, or as a clash of cultures or even (infamously) of civilisations. This contest of cultures is often represented from the perspective of the human rights professional or activist faced with an incomprehensible and 'Exotic Other', to quote an early and influential piece by Karen Engle - perhaps today the torturer or, more incomprehensible still, the torturer's legal adviser, the terrorist or the woman behind the veil. The workshop thus sought to explore the terms of this encounter. How do human rights encounter 'other' cultures, such as the United States military, the polities of Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, indigenous peoples, the institutions of globalised economics or militant Islam? Are human rights the product or portend of one culture, or of many? And does it make a difference that human rights arrive or are imagined in many different forms?

Keywords: human rights, culture, clash, other, faith

JEL Classification: K33