Is the West Imposing Its Values on Developing Nations through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The concept of human rights, as it is known today, expresses western liberal values and is not compatible with other parts of the world. In fact, to transplant the ideals of western society onto non-western states commits a blunder rooted in intellectual arrogance (Chowdhury, 2013). Numerous human rights declarations, treaties and conventions were drafted under the guidance of the United Nations. One of the most vital declarations adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Musalo, 2014). The declaration’s foreword states that it is to serve “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations” (Musalo, 2014), and was intended to be universally applied. The declaration is often described as a progression of bills, statutes and revolutions in the political history of Europe and North America, and sets forth the freedoms that the ‘international’ community committed to respecting (IRIN & Analysis, 2006). The thirty articles of the declaration is set out in three parts, civil and political; social and economic; and culture (Heuer & Schirmer, 1998). However, “the US vigorously rejects the last two sections”