Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy_Human Rights and Values in Asia

8/14/2019 Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy_Human Rights and Values in Asia

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Human Rights and "Values n Asia":Reflections n East-WestDialogues

lN rU E EARLy 990s he economican d socialachievements f moderniz-in g East Asian statesbecame oo conspicuous o ignore. Senior Asianst i tesmensuchas Le eKr.ran ew and Dr . Mahathir trumpeted heir highGNps on th e world stage,arguing that th e "Asian miracle" restedondist inct ive Asian values."Th e point wa s to castdoubt on th e normativesuperiori tyof 'Western-stylehurnanrights an d to question he desirabi l-it y of exporcing ha t model to EastAsian societ ies.f Asianscan do u'el lwith their ow n moral valuesan d conceptionsof poli t ical organizatron,then wh y shoulddefenders f western-style uman rightsseek o imp6setheir ideason th e restof th e world?The Asian valuesdebate,unfortunately, generatedmore heat han light.In retrospect,he substantive roblemseems bvious: he debatewa s nel-ther about Asia nor about values.Asia is a huge ar.rd xceptionally drverselandmass, ncompassing uc h of the world's populat ion. t hostsa num-be r of rel igions, uc has slam,Hinduism,Buddhism,Confucianism,Tao-ism, christ ianity,an d Judaism,as well as a myriad of races,ethnicit ies,.rrrro-r, and languages.The assumption that Asia has its own cultr,rralessenceundamcnial lydif ferent rom rhar of th e West s. o sa y he le:rst.dubious. In fact, as Tatsuo Inoue has argued, he Asian values hesis ron-ical ly owes ts roots ro'Western ntel lectualmperial ism, ha t is , "Orien-talism," the very force hat was being criticized by official Asian critics ofhuman rights.tThere l. e no dist inct ly Asian values,an d anything that goes by th enanleof "Asian values" ends o refer o values ha t are eithernarrower(dist inct ive nly to somesociet ies, r partsof societ ies,n Asia)or broa.leri the valuescharacterize ociet ies ot h in an d ou t of Asia) ha n the statedtermsof reference.More surprisingly, erhaps,most clainrsmade on be -half of Asian valueswere not evenabout values!Considersome clairnstypical lypu t forward by poli t iciansunder rh e rubric of Asian values:po -litical ,igitts conflict with economic development; free speech eads tcr

rTatsuo Inoue, "Liberal Democracyan d Asian Or iental isn-r , "nThe EastAsian Chal 'let rger: r Human Rights,ed.oanne R. Baueran d l )aniel A ' Bel l (New York: Cambr idgcUniversi tvPress, 999) .

ncialan d el ig iousonf l ict ; onfucianalues romote conomicevel-'^L-.nr. rWhareverhemeri ts f these laims.he y reult imntelynrpir i -:: i:;;-;;;; ;";, be answered v socialscientists' ot bv moral:?,lt;;h;;. in. o"ry way to evaluarehese laims s by means f his-ior i .utan dsociol ,ogicalnalysis ' .^. : . ,^.- , .1. , .^ncir ler,O f c o u r s e , p o t rt r c a l a c t o r s t e nd t o b e m o t i v a te d b y c o n s i d e r at l o l l s^ri., ittunciear hinking, ancl t may not be fair to blameelderlyAsian::i l;;; fo r theobfuslating iscoursen Asian alues.2he nterest-#';;;,.-;"*ever, is that th e debate ttracted o muchglobalatten-:i:":;;*;t; ing th epresencef something esidesbfuscation nd self-::;;;ff i- SeieralEastand Southeast siansocietiesid modernizeI"j.'f.ir, *ntle seeming o build upon traditional valuessomewhatatffi;;th w.rr.rrl libJral "pp.ou.h.t to human ights.Fortunately,he[] l prur*ed bu t moren;ancedviewsof critical ntellectualsn EastIri"'t.tp ro makesense f the ke y ssues nderlyinghe debate.Overifr.lrr, i.."d., I havebeen ortunateo participaten.severalast-ryestii"frg".t on the subject f human ights,an d thischapter onstitutesiri-rJn..ti""s on theiedialogues'3y aim s o ge tbeyondhe hetoricit 'arn", doggedhe human ightsdebate nd dentify elatively ersua-,iu. E"rt Aiian criticisms f traditionalWesternapproacheso humanrights.

2Lee Kuan Yew, to be fair, has backed ,rway frorn the term "Asian values," arguing thathe was referring only to values shared by East Asian countries with a confuciarr herirage'

3In the mid-1990s the -arnegie Council .. Ethics and Intern.ltio'al Affairs convenedseveralworkshops inv.lving dial lgues between East Asian and !ilestern ntellectualson thesubjecto{ human rights ,,, i"rt AJi"n societies. he project was planned and adn-Inisteredby jo"nn. R. Bauer, director of studiesat the Carnegie Council' Workshops were held infi" lon. (Japan), Bangkok (Thailand), and Seoul (Korea)' rvith a final wrapup s-essron tthe Harvard Law Sch.rl. Niy ,efl".tions on the Hrkone workshop appeared as the article,.The East Asian chal leng. to Hulnr.r Rights," Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 3,(August 7996), artdn.ty "h".ti."t' on the Bangkok workshop appeared as the rrticle "Nli-noriy Rights: on the Importance of Local Knowledge," Dlssazr (Summer.1996). I havealsocoedited (with Joanne R. Bauer) a book that is the product of this multiyear project'The East Asian Challettge for Humart Rig/,lrs'Chapter l of my book Easr hleets West:Hu-man Rigbtsant| Democracy in EastAsia (Pri'-,c"t.,n'Princeton University Press,2000) alsodr"*, o'r-,he findings c,f his project. Over the past severalyears, have also participated tna multiyear, cross-culturaldialogu" on Confucianismconvened by Hahm Chaibong then ofYonsei University and UNESC[) that ha. dealt with the topic of human rights (amongother topics). I have coetlited nvo books that resulted from this proiect, con.fucianism orthe Moiern .World, co-edited vith Hahm Chaibong (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress,2003) ,andTbePol i t i csct fA i fect iueRelatior ts:EastAsiaandBeyon, l ,co-edi tedwi thHahm Chaihark l l-anham, MD: Lexington Books' 2004)' This chapter draws on all thesesourcesandsomeunpub l i shedargumentsmadebyE as tA s i anpar t l c l pan t sa t t neseworK -shops.My o*r, qrralifi."ti.rns ani"l"burarions of rheseargumettts are largel,vconfined t


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554 HUMAN RIGHTSOne can dist inguishbetween our sorts of argumentspu t forward byEastAsian cri t ics of NTestern pproacheso human rights (I do no t meanto imply that theseargumentsare dist inct ly or uniquelyAsian).First, heargument often asserted y East Asian governments ha t a right must betemporari ly curtai led n order to dealwith an unfortunate setof part icu-lar social and poli t ical circumstances.Once the perceived risis s over,according o this vieq then the rights denial s no longer ;ust i f ied.Thisviewpoint s not in the f irst nstance "cultural clash" over human rights,

as both the government n quest ionand the human rights act ivist shareacommon set of moral and poli t ical aspirat ionsas an end goal. Howeveqcultural factors can affect the prioritizing of rights, which matters whenrights confl ict and it must be decidedwhich one to sacrif ice.The other challenges o V/estern iberal conceptions of human rightsar e more direct ly disputesover cultural values. Supportersof universalhuman rights ried to discredit he Asian valuesdiscourse y point ing rothe diversity of valueswithin the Asian region,but such argumentsalsounCermined heir own posit ion. As Randall Peerenboom rgues, if suchdiversity precludes he common valueswithin the Asian region, then italso precludesa fort iori th e possibi l i ty of uniuersaludlues."aHence, Iwil l use he term "values n Asia," which is sensit ive o the plural ism ofvalueswithin Asia ye t retains he implicat ion that such valuesca n posechallengeso rWesternl iberal approaches o human rights.

The secondchallenge s an argument over the ustificatioa of rights. Asagainst he claim that the 'Westernl iberal tradit ion is the only possiblemoral foundation for human rights, many East Asian human rights ac-tivists argue that their own cultural traditi ons can provide the resourcesfor local ust i f icat ions f ideasan d pract ices ormally real ized hrough ahuman rights regime in 'Westerncountries. This argument is not merelytheoretical, t also has strategic mportance for advocatesof human rightsreforms in East Asia.

The third challenge s an argument or moral plural ism. That is, cul-tural particularities in East Asia may justify a different moral standpointvis-i-vis the human rights regime typically endorsedby \Testern govern-ments, scholars, nd human rights act ivists.To repeat, he East Asianre -gion is a complexmi x of societ ies, ultural tradit ions, and poli t ical vrew-points. I t is also true that values change signif icant ly over t ime rnresponse o various nternalan d externalpressures, nd this s evident nthe region. However, some values n Asia may be more persistent thanothers and may diverge rom somehuman rights deasan d pract ices yp -ical ly endorsed n Western ountries. f these aluesare widely sharedby

a Randall Peerenboom, Show Me the Money-the Dominance of Vealth ir.rDeterminingRightsPer formancen Asia, " Duke lnternat ionalLa w Journal ,vol . 15, no. I (2005) ,131.

HUMAN RI( ;HTS AND . .V A LUF.STN ASIA"

both defenders nd crit ics of the poli t ical statusquo, there is a strong.,resumptio.t n favclr of respect or those values't Th e fou.rh challenges the argument hat the current "internat ional"hurnan rights regime needs o be modif ied to incorporate East Asianui.wpoi.ttr. East Asian critics have argued that the current rights regimehas be..t forged largely on the basisof \Testern iberal-democratic norms,andthat. he peopleof East Asia can contribute posit ively o the evolu-tion of a truly international human rights discourse n which they hadno t heretofore layed a substantial art . Th e point here s not to displacehuman rights in favor of some other set of principles,s ut rather to al-low for the possibility of learning from values n Asia so that the humanrights regime reflects he outcome of an international dialogue betweenpeoples f dif ferentcultures.The sect ionends with my own doubts re -garding he easib i l i ty f sucha proiect .

TnADE-OFFS AND PRIORITIESRights t)ersusDeuelopment: A Zer o-Swm Game?

A common East Asian argument is that Western-style ivil and politicallibertiesneed o be sacrificed n order to meet more basic material needs.Most famously, Lee Kuan Yew argues hat political leaders n developingcountries should b e committed to the eradication of poverty above allelse: As prime minister of Singapore,my first task was to lift my coun-try out of the degradation that poverty, ignorance and disease hadwrought. Since it was dire poverty that made for such a low prioritygiven o human life, all other things became secondary."5 f factional op-position threatens to slow down the government's efforts to promoteeconomic developmentor to plunge the country into civil strife, then rnLee's ie w tough measures an and should be taken to ensurepoli t icalstability.Such s the message ee delivers o receptiveaudiences n China,Japan,Vietnam, and the Philippines.TNobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, however, casts doubton the validity of this proposition.s He argues hat there is little empiri-

5See Anthony J. Langlois, The Politics of Justice and Human Rights: Southed.stAsidand UniuersalistTheory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 001).6Nathan Gardels, "Interview with Lee Kuan Yew," New PerspectiuesQuarterly, vol.9,no . 1 ( .Winter 992) .. 7The idea that the government's first obligation is to secure he means of subsrstencehas Confucian .oor, "n-d has been nfluential throuehout East Asian societieswith a Con-fucianher i rage: ee haprer9.8Unlessotherwise specif ied,he examples rom this sectionwere provided by East Asianpartrcipants at the workshop held in Hakone,.fapan, in June 1995 (see -rote ).


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5 756 HUMAN RIGHTScal evidence hat civi l and poli t ical rights lead to disastrousoutcomes.Systematic ross-national tat ist ical tudies o not support he claim thatthere is a correlat ion or a causal connection between authoritarianrsmand economicsuccess. ivi l an d poli t ical rights n fact helpto safeguardeconomic security n the sense ha t such rights draw attent ion to maiorsocialdisasters nd inducean appropriatepoli t ical response:

'Whetherand how a governmentespondso needs nd sufferings ay welldepend n how muchpressures put on it , and the exercise f pol i t icalrights such svoting, ri t icizing, rotest ing,ndso on )ca nmake realdif-ference. or example, ne of the remarkableactsabout aminesn theworld s hatno substantialamine asever ccurredn an ycountrywith ademocraticorm of government nd a relatively reepress.eSimilar to Lee Kuan Yew, the Burmesemilitary junta argues hat rightsmust be curtai led n order to provide th e poli t ical stabi l i ty said o under-pi n economicprogress.At leastsome reedoms,however,need o be re-stored to allow for economic growth. In the words of Yozo Yokota, thenUN SpecialRapporteur on Human Rights n Burma: "I f the governmental lows economists o freely engage n researchand to make necessaryrecommendations o improve the economic situation of the country, andif th e peoplear e allowed to do business reely by travelingwithout gov-ernment restrict ions nd col lect ing nformation and conductingnegotia-

t ions as they l ike, there s a great chance hat th e country would growrapidly. 1oThe current statusof Burma and North Korea-desperately poor coun-

tries governed by the region's most repressive ulers-supports Yokota'sdoubts.

The Need fctr SpecificityWhile th e generalclaim that civi l and poli t ical rights must be sacrif icedin the name of economic developmentmay not stand up to socialscien-t i f ic scrut iny, East Asian governmentsalso present narrower just i f ica-tions for curbing particular rights in particular contexts for particulareconomic or poli t ical purposes.Theseactionsare said to be taken as ashort-term measure o securea more important right or more of that

eAmartya Sen,"Human Rights and Economic Achievements," nTbe I''astAsian Chal-Ienge ctr Human Rights, ed. Joanne R. Bauer and l)aniel A. Bell (New York: CarnbriclgeUniversi tyPress,1999) , 92. l f the problem is severemalnut r i t ion,however , he record 'not so clear :s inceDeng's eforms,autocrat icChina ha s a bet ter ecord n this respect h' l t rdemocr i r t i c ndia.r0Yrzo Yokota, "Economic Development rnd Human Rights Pr : rct ice, i ' aper prc-senred t the Hakone workshop (o n f i le wi th t ruthor) ,3.

HUMAN RIGHTSAND "VALUES N ASIA'sarne ight in the long term. Xin Chunying, a lawyer working at the Hu -ma n Rights Center of the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences,notesthat East Asian governments emphasize "the part iculari ty of humanrights protection and the priority determined by the specific conditionsoi eachcountry."11 Such claims ar e put forward by government off ic ialsbut often attract significant local support.

Consider the fol lowing examples of s i tuation-speci f ic iust i f icat ions fo rth e temporary curtai lment of part icular rights:12

1. Kevin Tan, then professor of constitutional law at the National Uni-versity of Singapore, noted that Singapore in the 1960s was plagued by"the threat of a communist akeover,and communal and ethnic div is ions,which pitted Singapore'smajority Chinese population against the minorityMalays."t: Tan noted that Singaporemade useof emergency owers (origi -nal ly establ ished y Bri t ish colonial rulers) o counter hese hreatswhen i twas expelled from Malaysia in 1965. The Singapore government argued

. that without these powers, including the authority to detain without trialpersonssuspectedof being subversives, t may not have been able to pre-vent the country from plunging into civil strife.la

2. The Malaysian governmentsometimesdeprives ndigenouspopula-tions of access o forestsand waters, thus restricting their right to a securecultural context. The Malaysian government asserts hat control of suchnatural resources s necessary or economic development n that country.3. When Korean PresidentPark issued a threat to executeblackmailers. acapital outflow that was hemorrhaging the country's economy ceased.

4. Post-\forld '!Var II land reform in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwanwould have been much more difficult to accomplish without a U.S. occupy-ing force. If instead there had been a democratic context in each country,the political processmay have been captured by landed nterests hat wouldhave posed serious obstacles o land reform.1tXin Chunying, EastAsianViewsof Human Rights,"paperpresented t the Hakoneworkshop on ile with author),9.12EastAsian articipants t he Hakoneworkshop ave hese xamples ut did not nec-essarily ndorsehem.They were aisedas examples f justificationshat cannotbe re -

buttedwithout he acquisition f localknowledge.13KevinTan, EconomicDevelopmenr,egalReform, ndRights n Singapor e ndTai-wan," n TheEastAsianChallengectr Human Rlgbrs, d.JoanneR. Bauerand DanielA.Bell New York:Cambridge niversityPress, 999),266.raNeedlesso say,t is difficult o prove hat such owerswerenecessaryo prevent ivilstrlfebecausehe alternative cenarios counterfactual. xperiencerom oth er contexts,nowever'does uggesthat civil ibert ies ancontributeo communal trife f left unchecked:the reedom f the press n Rwanda, or example, llowedHutu demagogueso whip upnatredagainsthe Tutsiminori ty nd husprovideddeologicalusti f icat ionor the 1994genocide.SeeChua,Worldon Fire,168-70.


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5 98 HUMAN RIGHTS5. The consti tut ional ight to ow n property an d tr t receive air compensa-

t ion for stateacquisi t ionof suchproperty wa s del iberatelv eft ou t of Singa-pore'spostindependenceonsri tut ionbecauset confl ictedwith the i r lpera-t ives of economic development. According to Kevin Tan, the "overal lnational interest, vhich required hat vast tr ' . lc ts f land be reclaimedan ddeveloped or industrial use,wa s givenpriori ty i r.r he passage f the LandAcquisi t ionAct. Tivo key objectiveswere secured hrough the powers ac -corded under this act, s ince t al lowed th e government o acquire and forboth industrialdevelopment nd publ ic housing."ts

6. Th e existence f underpaid abor,denied he right to protest,r6 as at -tracted much internationirl nvestment n China's coastal egions, eadingto high growth ratesand increasing pportuni t ies or enrichment.As inter-national enterprisesalong the coast become incleasingly capi tal - an dtechnology'-intensive,oreign fi rms requiri r-rg heaper abor move inlancl.There is an argument hat the whole process as l spil lovereffect hat, rnthe end, may benefit much of t he country.

7. Al though meaningful pol i t ical part ic ipation fo r peoplewith hearingdisabi l i t ies equires tatesubsidies or the useof s ign-languagenrerprerersin publ ic forums when pol i t ical leadersaddressci t izens n an off ic ial ca-paci ty, and the use of i r.rterpretersor the hearing disabled o make theirown views known to pol i t ical officials, as wel l as he us eof subti t leswhenpol i t ical candidatesspeak on televis ion, poor countries such as Chine,Vietnam, and the Phi l ippines sirnpl l ' cannot afford to provide such ser-v ices . lTWhatever one thinks about these justi f icat ions fo r rights violat ions, ir

is important to note that they are not offered as general arguments forrepression and hence cannot be refuted by social scienti f ic evidencebased on general izat ions. What makes these arguments fo r humanrights violat ions plausible is that they include a descript ion of a pressingsocial problem (communal stri fe, capi tal ourf loq lack of economic

ri Tan, Economic ev eopr.r.rent,"68 .r^Whi le hecentralaovernmentoe s ppose, t east hetorical ly,hi skind of maltreat-mentof labor,DorothvSol ingeroints ut hat ts own economic ol ic iesdecentral iz ingprofit retention o loc;rl ovcrnmentsnd allowing ax receipts n local ndustry o be col-lected nd kept ocal ly) ave isposedocal eaderso sol ic i t ights busingnvestors.sSolinger bserves,the problern s pretty compler-it's not iust a question f 'the state'ar.rdts approach o rights . . the various chelons f the statemay have eparatenterestsand different easonsor their stances n rights."Letter rom DorothySolingero Dar.rielBel l 23 September995) on il ewith author).r7Theexan.rplef human ighrs iolat ionsgainst eople i t l r heanng isabi l i t ics :r sprovided y AkihikoYonai l ,rrnan a publ ic orumon "The (i rorvt l .rf Errst siaancl tshnpirct n HumanRights," eld rr he Uni tedNationsUniversi t in T


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6 10 HUMAN RIC;HTStai l certain rights in order to secureother nrore basic ights.r0T< rparrl-phrase saiahBerl in, not alI good rights go rogether, ontrary to the optl-mist ic and well-meaningpronouncements f some'Western uman rightsact ivists.

When countering plausible government ust i f icat ions or rights viola-t ions of this sort, on e ca n questioneither he premise hat the EastAsiancountry under quest ion s facing a part icularsocialcrisis fo r example, rhigh risk of intercommunal warfare) requiring imn-rediate ol i t ical ac -t ion or the idea hat curbing a part icular right is the bestmeansof over-coming that crisis.zrSfhareverthe tact ic, he socialcri t ic must be arnredwith detai led and historical ly nformed knowledge of the society ha tf inds tself n a specif ic, istorical lycontingentcondit ion.22Even f i t turns out that (1) th e socia lcr is is s real an d (2 ) curbingrights s the most effect ive vay of overcoming t, such ocal ust i f icatronsfo r th e denial of rights are, as Jack Donnell l . pur i t , "at besta short-runexcuse."23 r-rcehe economicor poli t ical troubles are more or lesssuc-cessful lyovercome, hen, according o the government's wn logic, th e

r t )The U.S. government 's eact ion o the September11,2001, ter ror ist ar racksshorvsthat suchargunlents rr enot dist inct lyAsian.As Randy Peerenboom uts t, "When st r tble,Euro-America can afford to preach to developingcountries struggling with terrorists aboutthe value of c iv i l an d pol i t i cal ightsand the mpor tanccof the rule of law. But when facedwrth threats, nruch cher ished ights go or:t th e rvindorv. f there s anvthing universal , twould seem o be disregard or rights whenever here are real or perceived hreats o sr,rbil-it y or order" (Peerenboo m, Human Rightsan d Rule of Law: Sfhat 's he Relat ionship?" ,( )eorgetown. lournalof Internat iondl Law, vol .36, no. 3 (2005) , 935. Th e September11terror istat t . rcks avealso ed o rethinking n some hurr ian ightsci rc les egi r rding hc pos-sibi l i ty ha t socialcr isesma y just i fy the temporary currai lmenrof r ights:see, .g., $Tr l l iarnF. Schulz(executivedirector of Amnesty International U.S.A.), "Security Is a Human Right,Too: Have Rights AdvocatesF'ai led o FaceLIp to Terrorism?", Tbe New York Times NI,tg'azine, 18 Apr i l 2004, 20.21Of course, uman r ightsgroupsand NGOs are ikely to look harder or feasible l tcr -nat ives o r igl r tsviolat ions han governmentof f i c ials,br r t f they ook and f ind nothing, tma y be ime to move on to somethingelse.I The socialcr i t i c , n other words, must 6rst concede he possibi l i tyof s i tuat ionalcon-straints on the part of the power holder and then proceed o show (on the basisof l c.rtt-textui r l argur) rent )ha r those const raints,donot apply in that pi r r t i cularsi tuat ion.Socialcr i t i cs n E:rstAsia may be bet tercul tural l l ' prepared o engage n this sor t of conr.rtu.t lcriticism. In experimental settings,accordir.rg o Richa rd Nisbett, "Americans in gcner.rlfai led o recognize he roleof s i tuat ionalconst raints n a speaker 's ehaviorwhereasKore-ans were abfe o. " N isbet t , The Geographyct iThought ,190. Fo r wl ratever oncaten; t ionof histor ical easons,heremay be perceptu,rl nd cogni t i veprocessesha t r .nake mer i ! r l l \typical ly think in "black and whi te" terms (perhapshelping to explain the readiness ocondemn"foreign" pract ices i thout any understanding f di f ferentcul tures rswel l lr th cpopular i tyof suchL] .S. residents s Ron:rldReagan rnd Ceorge ( ' . Bush) .r l . fack Donnel ly,"Human Rightsand Asian Values:A Defense f ' lWestern'Univcrsi r l -ism," irr The F.ast Asian Ohallenge or Human R4q.brs, d. Joanne R. Bauer and Dantel ABell (New York: Cambr i r lgeUnivcrsi ty Press, 999) ,72 .

HUNIAN RIGHTS AND "VALUES IN ASIA'

denial of rights is no longer ust i f ied.2a hi s leadsus once again to th epoint that the Asian v-:1luesebate s something of a misnomer.Somegov-i*..", arguments for curtailing righrs turn mainly on the validity ofimpi r i . r l facts.no t on ct l l ture.Thesearguments re sol ) ' le t imeslsed o,ut i t"t curtai l ingrights n such a wa y that the tradit ionalcultural valuesare actulally iolated. As Amartya Sen observed, he Chinesegovernmentiust i f ies ts one-childpolicy by claiming (erroneousln n Sen's iew) thatit i, n.. . tr"ry to deal with th e populat ion crisis. n fact, the result ingpolicy violates, not honors, a deeply held cultural preference or siringhale children.z'tNonetheless, he argument is not purely a matter of how best o stampou t undesirable ultural values.Tradit ionalvalues an be widely adheredto an d considered efensible y membersof a part icularcommunity,an dthis can affect the prioritizing 9f rights. Different societies may rankrights differently, and if they face a similar set of disagreeablecircum-stances he y ma y come to a dif ferent conclusionabout th e right thatneeds o be curtai led.Fo r example,U.S. cit izensma y be more wil l ing rosacrificea social or economic right in casesof conflict with a civil andpolitical right: if neither the constitution nor a majority of democraticallyelected epresentat ivesupport universalaccesso health care, he n th eright to health care regardless f income can be curtai led. n contrast,the Chinesemay be more wil l ing to sacrif ice civi l or poli t ical l iberty ncases f confl ict with a socialor economic ight: there may be wide sup-port for restrictions on the right to form free labor associations f theyare necessaryo provide conditions for economicdevelopment.26 iffer-en t priori t iesassigned o rights can also matter when it comes o decid-in g ho w to spend scarce esources.For example, East Asian societ ieswith a Confucian heritagewil l place great emphasisupon the value ofeducation,which may help to explain th e large amount of spendingon

2aNote, however, hat the "short term" can last a long time, particularly i f the socialcri-sis s replacedby rrnother hat similarl,v ustifies he rights curtailment. (For exanrple, n thelate 1990s, pressure was bui lding on Sir.rgapore nd Mal,rysia to repeal internal securirvacts hat allowed indefinite detention without trial because he nitial justification, viz., fearof communist takeover, was no longer plausible, but the September11 terrorist attacks,alongwith the concornirant fear of terrorisr attacks by Islanric "fundamentalists" in South-eastAsia, put an end to that debate.)Moreover, if the main reason or rights cur-tailment sinsufficient economic resources e.g., ew countries can afford to subsidizesign-languageinterpreters in al l pol i t ical f,,rr*, so that people with hearing disabi l i t iesare guaranteedequal rights to meaningful political participation), ther.r he "short-term" restriction onrtghts wil l not "wither away" in the foreseeable uture.2t Sen, omment t Hakonc workrhop.26To repeat , do not meau o implv ha t such hcl iefs ust r fv ing onst rai r . l tsn c iv i l anclpol i t icalrights are necessarily istinctive to the East Asian regi on.What I do rnean o argucts hat they wil l seemmore plrrusible o a wider array of constituents compared to people uWesternl iheraldcmocrat iceouut r r rs.


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6362 I{UMAN RI(;I{TSeducationcompared o other societ ieswith similar levelsof economicdevelopment.zT ote, however, hat thesechoices are not meant to becelebrated;he y ref lect he dif f icult circumstancesha t ma y bind poli t icalactors n the short o medium term.In short, thesearguments or curtai l ing rights do not undermine th equest or a truly universalhuman rights regime:Cultural arguments orthe systematic denial of basic civil and political rights, as well as eco-nomic, social,and cultural rights, cannotwithstand cri t ical scrut iny,evenallowing fo r just i f iablemoral and poli t ical dif ferences nd for plausibleaccountsof situat ion-specif ic urtai lment of part icular rights. At best,dif ferentcultural valuesca n just i fy dif ferentpriori t ies given to rights incases f confl ict , bu t both "sides" can agree hat such hard choicesar eunfortunate and hopefully temporary.The other challenges o \Testern deas of human rights are more di -rect ly arguments over cultural values. SeveralEast Asian intel lectualshave argued hat 'Western-style uman rights discoursean d instrumentshave no t ye t adequately ncorporated "values in Asia." Th e prclposedremedies raw on th e posit ive-potential and realized-contribut ions ofEast Asian cultural tradit ions.

AsreNJusrrrIceuoNs Fo RHuueN RtcsrsHwman Rights: s Liberalism the Only Moral Foundation?

According to the prominent human rights theorist Jack Donnelly, "theidea hat al l human beings,simply becausehey are human, have certaininal ienablepoli t ical rights" was essential ly oreign to tradit ional Asianpoli t ical thought as well as to premodern Westernpoli t ical thought.2tThe theory of human rights was f irst ful ly developed n John Locke'sSecondTreatise n Gouernment.These deasspread broadly in responseto the dual threats o human dignity posedby modern central izedstatesand socially disruptive free markets in seventeenth-centuryEurope.The claim that the concept of human rights is foreign to East Aslanpoli t ical tradit ions may be out of date: China, for example,has been he

2r China is an exceptionwithin the East Asian region. As the official newspaper CDinaDally notes, "in the 1990s, China sp ent ust 2 perce nt of its GDP on education, growing tomore than 2.4 percent n 200.3. n 2003, developed westernnations investedan averagc6 to7 percent 6f their GDP in education, and even n third world countries the average was '{ lpercent." "Experts Say Education Input Vital," China Daily, T August 2005 (wwwchinadaily.com.cn/EnglislVdoc/2005-07/08/content58397.htm, visi ted7 January 2006). As Chinacontinues o recover ts Confucian tradition, it is hoped that this percentage an incre:sc' Inany case, ocial cri t icscan appeal o the Cor.rfucianradition to arl lue for an increase.:s Donnelly, "Human Rights and Asiar.r alues," 62.

HUMAN RIGHTSAND "VALUES N ASIA"

siteof a rich discourse n rights or the ast centuryor so, everyslnce heierm "rights" began to be translated into the Chinese tetm quanli'LeMor.ou*, severalEast Asian intellectuals argued that values similar to,.n..r, of Westernconceptionsof human rights ca n also be found in,oa. . .pr.-odern" non-\Testern radit ions. For example, th e dist in-suished-IslamiccholarNurcholish Madjid notes hat "Islam too recog-iir., th. right to found a family, the right to privacy, he right to freedomof ,oou.-..tt and residence,he right to use one'sown language, he rightto practice one'sown culture and the right to freedom of religion."30TheUniversity of Hong Kong political philosopher JosephChan argues hatvaluessimilar to aspects f tWesternconceptions of human rights can alsobe found in the Confucian tradition.3l The notion of ren (variously trans-lated as benevolence, umanity, or love), for example,expresseshe valueof impartial concernto relievehuman suffering. n Mencius's famous ex-ample of a child on the verge of falling into a well, a person with ren*onld be moved by compassion o save he child, not becausehe or shehad personal acquaintancewith the child's parents,nor because e or shewanted to win the praise of fellow villagers or friends,but simply becauseof his or her concern for the suffering of a human person. Such concernshows that Confucianism allows for duties or rights that belong to hu-man personssimpliciter, independent of their roles.12In addition, the functional equivalents of somehuman rrghtsprdcticescan be found in Asian traditions. For example, he idea of curbing th eruler's exerciseof arbitrary state power figured prominently in Confu-

2eSeeStephenC. Angle, Human Rightsand ChineseThought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry(New York: Cambridge University Press,2002), and Marina Svensson'Debating HumanRights n China: A Conceptu al and Poli t ical Histttry (Lanham, MI): Rowmar.rand Little-field,2002). Angle and Svensson ave coedited and translated The ChineseHuman RightsReader (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), which includes many of the key Chinese-languagedocuments and essays n human rights.30Nurcholish Madjid, "Islam, Modernization and Human Rights: A Preliminary Eram-inationofthe Indonesian Case," paper presentedat the Hakone workshop (on file with au-thor) (quoting Chandra Muzaffar), 7. Since he downfall of Suharto, Nurcholish Madiidhas played an important role in aiding the transition to democratic rule, and his views havebeen espected artly, if not mainly, becausehe appeals o Islamic foundations and is per-sonal ly espectedor his rel rgiou:piety.31In the same vein, StephenAngle argues hat the Chinese ights discourse owes rnuchto neo-Confucian theories about leeitimate desires hat date back to the sixteenth century.Angle'smain argument is not thet th.r. i, ar-, xact convergelicebetween Westernand Chi-nese iews on human rights, but rather that the Chi nese background has shapeda dist inc-ttvely Chinese discourse about rights. I have criticall y evaluated his argument in my re-view of Angle's book, "Human Rights and Social Criticism in Contemporary ChinesePol i t i catTht ry, " Pol i t i cal Thect ry,vol .32, no. 3 (June2004) ,397400.12SeeChan, "A Confucian Perspective n Human Rights," 218.


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HU]VIAN RTGHTScian poli t ical reginres.3rongryn Mo argr:es hat the Censorate rovidedan effect ive nst i tut ional estraint on the ruler's power in Choson dy -nasty Korea. The Censorate onsisted f three org2lns hat were explic-itly designedo prevent buse n the exercise f pol i t ical an d adminrstra-t ive agents.Th e censorswere not only judicial and audit ing agents,bu talso voicesof dissent nd opposit ion,playingroles similar o that of op -posit ion part ies n modern democracies. 'ra

There were also unct ional equivalents f some social and economicrights. Classical onfucians trongly emphasized hat the f irst obl igat ionof government s to feed the people,and this norm was often pu t intopract ice n imperialChina. n the Songdynasty 960-1279 c.r.), th e cen-tral governmentestablished granary n each district for the storing ofrice that came from th e public land as rent. Each of the four classesof people was given ic e and sometimesclothes. n the Qing dynasty(1644-1971), therewere strict legal sanct ions o punish off icials whofai led o secure he "right to food": "According to th e Law Code of th eTsing [Qing] Dynasty,f th e off icialsdo not support the four classes,hevery sick person nd he nfirm and superannuated ho needpublic sup-port, they shallbe punishedby sixty blows of th e ong st ick."i5

rr I t i s rather surpnsing hat A lasdai rNlaclnt l ' re, known for his supposed ost i i i ty to'Sfestern-stylerights discourse,has argued rhat modern states necessarilymust drarv onthat discoulse n a wa v ha t precludesConfucianism: my viervdoes nvolvea denial harany modern state,Asilrnor lwestern, could embody the values of a Mencius or a Xunzj.The pol i t i caldimensions f a Clonfuci i r r . r i smhat took ei theror both of them as ts eacherswould be those of the ocal cornmunity, not of the state." Maclrtyre, "Questions for Con-fucians:Ref lect ionsn he Essaysn Comparat iveStudy of Sel f,Autonomy, and Commu-nity," in Coniutian Etltics:A Compitratiue Study of Self, Autoilomy, and Community, ed.Kwong- loi Shun andDavidB. Wong Ne w York: Cambr idgeUniversi tyPress, 004) , 217.Bn t i f some aspects f Confucian- inspi redract ices nd inst i tnt ions an serve s fhe fun.tional equivalent of \Vestern-style ractices and institutions that securecivi l and pol i t icalr ights, he n wh y take uc ha hard l ine against pol i t i calConfuci i rnism"?Maclntvre under-est imates he potent ial f Confucian- inspi red ol i t i cal nst i tut ions,us t as he overest i rn: l testh e potent ial of Confucian thics o st ructureethical i fe at the level of local communi tv.Felv contemporzrry dherents f Confucianism egard ( lonfucianismas a "wel l -de6ne. lconcept of the kind of community within which relationships could bedefined by the re e-vant nornrs,ancl he our vi r t r reswould provide the standards or pract ice" ( ibid. , 2l -5) ;rather ,Confucianismsviewedas par t of the good i fe,par t icular ly elevant or st ructur ingrelat ionshipswrth elder lv arents, ut most Confucians reelydraw upon ofher ethical c-sources uch as Chr ist iani ty nd Budclhismor st ructur ing, thical i ves.raJongrvnMo , "The Chal lenge f Accountabi l i ty: mpl icat ions of th e Censorate. " trOonfucianism for the lodern \Vorlr!. ed.Daniel A. Be l and Hahrn Chaibong (Nerv lbrk:Cambr idgeUr.riversitr ress, 003).I'Cherr, Huan-Ch.rng, Tlte Econontic Pritrciltlesof C


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576 HUN{i\N RI(;HTSapproach hat promises o reconcile el igious nsightswith human rightsideas) may lead poli t ictrl ly moderate rel igious persons r-rtodevelopingfeelings ost i le o human rights posit ions.-r8

Second, t is a widespread belief within the United States-current lyth e dominant voice/actoron the world diplomatic srage-that export ingU.S.poli t icrrlpract ices nd inst i tut ior-rss necessaryor the promorion ofhuman rights abroad. As StephenYoung, former assisrant ean at th eHarvard Luw School . ut s r,Many Americans ee mo believeha t he const itut ionalattern f gover-nance n theUnitedStatesoday-as forrnalizedn the Declararion f Inde-pendence.he Constitut ion,nd heBil l of Rights-is a necessaryrerequi-site or protectinghuman rights.Thus, hey evaluate he performance fother countriesn the f ieldof human ightsby comparingheir conductwith the standards f r\merican olitics.se

lt may well have been e asible o act on this belief n the post-World ]X/arII era, when the United Stateswas powerful enough to insist upon hu -man rights norms.Th e U.S.capacity o dictateappropriate orms of gov-ernment o Japan n the immediatepost-Vorld War I I period s :r classicexample. Today, however, he relative econornic and military strength ofEastAsia means hat the United Statesmust now rely primari ly on moralauthority to promote human rights n Asia. Flowever, everal actorsun -dermine U.S.moral authority in rhis respect.Widely publicizedsocialproblems n th e United Stares o longer makeit the attract ivepoli t icalmodel that i t may oncehave been.Fo r example,Tokyo University'sOnuma Yasuaki is an act ive prop()nentof human

38This is n()t to deny thar aspects f religious raditions are nconsistentwith conrempo-rary human rights values and practices,but only to suggest hat aspectsof rel igioustraditions may be supportive of human rights and to offer the possibi l i ty that contemporar,ymembersof rel igious radi t ionsnray be able o formulatepersuasiventerpretar ionsvhi leexcising "contingent" aspects nimical to human rights concerns. Sec he discussicln f Is-lamic feminisrn below.re Stephen B. Young, "Human Rights Questions n Southeast Asian Culture: ProblenrsfcrrAmerican Response," n The Pol i t ics of Human RlgDt-., d. Paula Ner.vberg New York:New York University Press, 1980), 187. \bung then proceeds o criticize this standpoiur'"Although the Anglo-American political ,rnd legal trael i t ion has been a forceful exposirorof human rights causes, t i s not the only basis upon which to bui ld a pol i t ical system hatrespects ndividual dignit l '." Nonetheless, he falls into his own universalist trap when hefai ls to dist inguishbetween democracy rnd human r ights, apperent lv assuming thatWestern-style electoral mechanisms 21re ccessar)' rnd sufficient to s ecure basic humanr ights se e bid. , 1B7-88, 209). t i s mpor tanr o keep r - rmind that nondemocrat ic overn-ments sometimesdo fairly well at securing human rights (e.g.,cor.rtemporaryHong Kongor the Republic of Venice or most of the previous n'rillenni um), whereasdemocratic goven. l lnenfs an sonret imes aveat rocioushrrnran ights ecordsat home (e.g.,Sr i LankrrarrdEl Salvadorunder Duarre) rnd abroacl e.g. , he Uni teciStates n V ietn: iman d Iraq).

HUNlAN RIGHTS AND *VALL]ESIN ASIA'

rights n Japan,bu t he is also a harsh cri t ic of th e attempt to export th eU.S.-style ights regime, which emphasizes ivi l an d poli t ical l ibert iesover socialand economic ights.a0 numa argues hat this regime-withit s excessiveegalism and individualism-contributes to various socialdiseases, uc h as high rates of drug use, collapsing amil ies, rampantcrime, growing economic nequali ty', nd alienation from the poli t icalprocess.rIt is obvious that recent foreign policy developments,part icularlysince he Iraq \ i l /ar,have underminedU.S. moral credibi l i ty in Asia an delsewhere.a2he tendency o subordinatehuntan rights concernswhenthey confl ictwith securityand commercialconsiderat ions ontributes ocynicismregarding the true motivat ion of U.S. policyrnakers,no t iustamong governmentoff icials,bu t also among ordinary cit izens.a3he re-fusal o make amends or past misdeeds uch as he Vietnam il/arfurtherunderminesU.S. moral authoriry in Asia,aaus t as Japan's efusal o ac-cept full responsibi l i ty or i ts war of aggression eakens ts own moralauthority in Asia. Fo r th e foreseeable uture, the attempt to export"American deals" s l ikely to fal l on deaf ears, f not be counterproduc-t ive, n the EastAsian egion.Third, appeal o the UniversalDeclarat ionof Human Rights (UDHR)as a standard or promoting human rights in East Asia is not withoutdrawbacks.Although the UDHR has servedas an effect ive ool in somehuman rights strugglesn EastAsia (for example,by hur-r-ranights can-r-

a0The U.S.-stylepriority of civil and political rights refers o the official pol iciesof theU.S. governmer.rt its invocations of "humirn rights and democracy" tend to refer to civi land pol i t i cal r ights) , the works of leading Amer ican pol r t i cal phr losophers e'9. ,JohnRawls's A Theory of Justlre), and U.S.-basedhurnan rights gronps (e.g., Hurnan RightsFirst, formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights). It is worth rroting,however, hat the U.S. branch of Amnesty International is expl ici t ly critical of the officialU.S.devaluat ion f economic ights (see he fol lowing chapter) .al Onuma Yasuaki , Toward an Interciv i l i zat ional pproach o Human Rights, " n TDeEastAsian Challenge or Httman Rights,ed. Joanne R. Bauerand Daniel A. Bell, eds. NewYork: Cambridge Universitv Press, 999), 107.a2The lack of moral authority in the rest of world was expl ici t ly recognized by the U.S.StateDepartment when it postpo ned the annual releaseof its (2004) Country Reports onHuman Rights Practices follorving the publ ic release of photos depicting the torture("abuse," rs he U.S.government al led t) of I raqi pr isoners t Abr . rGhraib pr ison.a3On the caseof China, seeRandall Peerenboom, "AssessingHunan Rights in China:\fhy the Double Standard?," Cornell International 7a11,Journal, vol. 38, no. 1 (Feoruary2004) ,73, n. 7a{ The Bush irdministration, needless o s:r1',s not l ikel l to apologize for the Vietn.rm'War.More surprisingly, perhaps, he Clinton administrirtion added insult to injurl , lry pres-suring the Vietnamesegovernment to repay $145 mil l ion in debts incurred by the U.S.-backed government of the former South Vietnam, effectivelyputt ing "Hanoi in the posirionof retroactivelv ooting part of the bi l l for a war a garnst tself." Clay Chandler, "Ghosts of\Var Harrnt Rrrbin'sVietnantTrio." Intern,ttiotul Herdld Tribune, 11 April 1997.


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6 8 HUMAN RIGHTS rwpalgners n th e Phi'ppines during Marcos' rule),ai n many parts of EastAsia th e UDHR an d other u.N. documentsar e not nearly as eieuant.Since he UDHR was formurated without significant input frorn EastAsia, it is not always clear to EastAsians*hy ih. UDHR irro"ia consri_tute "our" human rights norms (the Bangkok Declaration was significa.tbecauset was the f irst organized rpr. ir ion of Asian opporit ion to th .UDHR;.+e Although the UDHR is normatively binding, _ort turt Ariunstatesendorsed t for pragmatic,poi i t icarreasonsan d no t because f adeeply held commirmenr ro th e human rights norms it conrains.Th eUDHR thus doesnot have he normative force and poriticar elevanceof aconstirutio' that enrerges rom genuine clialogue betw..r, interestedpar_tles keen on finding a long-term solut ion o a sharedpoli t icaldi lemma.r,The lack of a proper enforcementmechanism or the I^nternationalBilr ofFluman Rights, as the uDHl .1"d subsequentdocuments are cailed, fur-ther reduces he pract icalviabi l i ty of this tandard.Another fundamentalweakness f th e U.N. documents s that t l-rey repitchedat too high a levelof abstract ion perhapsnecessari ly o in viewof the need to reach agreementamong many states) o be of us e fo rmany actualsocialand poli t ical problems.+sor example,does he ..rightto l i fe" (art icle3 of the UDHR) mea' rhart apitalp,r. , irh-.r, t should beahol ished?t is nrucheasier o secure gr". - . , . , r at rh e evel f h igh pr in-ciple ha n to secure greement ve r thJappricat ionof thoseprirr. ipt. , ,oa5c)ne can explarn this phe'omeno' in part by the facr thar the Nrarcos regimc de-pended o a great extenton U.S. economican d mi i i tary suppor t .Because f this, M.rcoswas extremely consciousof his publ ic irnagebefore he world. This, in rurn, le d hirr-, n ",r-lo y legal ist i cust i f i cat ionsfo r his pol ic ies.As Mar ia serenaDiokno prt, it , . .*h"t b"rt".way than to apply i'rernati.nal i'srrunents he had publicry proclaimed as the guicri 'gprinciples of his rule?" Lerter from Maria serena ornkno t,, b^ni.r g.ti D0-N,r""-1,.,l q 9 5 ) o n f i l ew i t h a u t h o r ; .a6Sumrer B. Twiss nores hat the chinese deregate o the crraftingpr.cess of the UDIJRargued for the inclusion of the confucia t ideaof ren in art icle 1, wirrch was eventual ly re-flected n the idea rhat human beingsare endowecl nor just with ,.reason,,,but also rl,ith"conscience." Twiss' "A constructive Framer.l,ork or Discussing confircianism and Hu-man Rights," rn confuci.tnisyn and Human Rrgbrs, ed. wm. Tteodore de Bary a'd ruveiming (New York: columbia universi ty press,1-998) , 1. If that is rh e only c.ncreremaniiestatior.r f an EastAsran contribution to the UDHR, however, t'.,.n,t qu.ll rh" ..it-ics who view it as a "Vestcentric" document,a; one rnight also ask why the government's voice should count as the norrnativer,vbinding final interpretation of hum:rn rights issues n East Asia. Ironicerlly, he sarneclrrcswho point out that East Asian governments l legit imatelypresent heir u*r, iut..pr"tnt,.,r.,of hurnan rights (often sejf-interested .g.-,.'.n,, for the ile',,iar f rights) ", thnrg'h it reprc-sents society-nide onsensus re saying, n ef fect , ha t nternat ionalhuman standards p,held in the ul)HR should be upheld because heir g.ver.menrs endorsed his docurnenr.aNSimi lal problemsar isewi th pr incipl t -sai d ou r in statc consr i tut ions: n rh e (nrrs-taken) tenclency o think that cortstiturionalizing property righrs is strfficient o secure hoser ights,se eci rcg Alerander ,"prope.l in Grobarcronsr i t r r t ior - t r {aki .g: r .oiding he For ,mal istTrap" (ms.on f i lewi th th e aurhor) .

HUNIAN IGHTS ND*VALUESIN ASIA" 69oart icular ases.Moreover, U.N. documentsdo not provide much guid-a.rce h.tl r ights confl ict or need o be violated preemptively o preventfurther violations of rights.In short, U.S. an d "internat ional" just i f icat ions or hunran rights dcrno t seempart icularlyprornising rom a tact icalpoint of view, and to beeffect ive uman rights act ivistsmay need o pa y m()re tt tent iorr o locallust i f icat ionsor human rights n Asia. There are alsoposit ive easons n'favorof drawing on the resources i indigenousculrural tradit ions topersuade as tAsiansof the value of human rights.

First, awareness f "values n Asia" al lows th e human rights act ivisrto draw on the most compelling ustifications i


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HUMAN RICiHTSpractices. Conversel;', he group seems o recognize hat defending rightsby appeal ing o "universal umarr ighrs" no r ro menrionwesre- femi-nist deas) s ikely to be neffect ive,f not counrerproducive.5rIt can be argued hat predominantly slamicsociet ies rescnra specialcase, vhere people'soutlooks and "habits of the heart" are profoundlyinformed by rel igiousvalues. n this context, it seemsobvious that de -fenders of human rights are more likely to be effective if they workwithin th e dominant tradit ion. But cultural tradit ions ma y also be rele-vant for human rightsact ivistsan d democlat ic eformerselsewhere. orexample,

wangJuntao-a long-time democratic activist who spent nearlyf ive years n jai l after the 1989 Beij ing massacre-argues ha t many ofthe key figures n chinese dernocracy movements drew inspiration fromconfucian values. ro m th e ate nineteenth entury o the present, e:rrlyal l the important f igures n th e history of democracy movements inmainland china, Taiwan, and Hong Kong tried to reviveconfucianismin order to support democrat izat io'. rvang Juntao supports hi s aspira-t ion, part ly on the grounds ha t democracyma y be easier o implementin th e chinese conrext f it can be shown that i t need no r confl ict withtradit ional poli t ical culrure: "I f confucianism is consistenrwith democ-racy, he tradit ional culture may be usedas a meansof promoting demo-crat izat ion n Ezrst sia. At rhe very least, he poli t ical rransit ionwill besmootherand easier, i th lower costs, ince herewil l be ess ultural re -sistance."52f course, here is an elernentof speculat ionhere since he":f fect iveness"of confucian-based argLlmentsor democracy emalnsto be proven in mainland China, bu t such arguments,at minimum, ca nbe deployed o counreroff icialattempts o use confucianism" to just i tyconstraintson democrat ic ule.Second, ocal tradit ions ma y shed ight on the groups most l ikely tobring :rbout desirablesocial and poli t ical change. Fo r example, Ha n

51Note, however, hat the strategyadopted by Sisters flslam isnot without controversv.At the Bangkok workshop, a representative f rhe group r.l,:rs er.erely riticizcd b1' a devgurMuslim from Malaysia, who questioned he Islamic credentials of the group, including thcfact that some memlrerscould nc.rtead the Qurirn in Arabic. Suchcriticisms suggest hat lo-cal justifications are most effective f deployed by "true believers" of the traditior.r; n thecaseof Islam, if a nonbel ieverdraws on lslam to push forwarcl values sirlilar ro humanrights in an Islamic context, the strategicuse of the rel igion is not l ikely to be viewcd as sin-cere and may be reiected s another form of cultural imperialisrn.Needless o sa1. do notmean to irnply that the members of Sistersof Islam are not true believers:n fact, therr sLre-cessesn the N'lalaysianpol i t ical area sugl iests hat they are taken seriously by orher i\tus-l ims' ln this case, t appears o be a dispute betweencompeting interpretations of Islarn,notbetween believersand nonbelievers.tr rVang Junta., "Co'f'cian Demr>crats n (lhinese Hrstory," tn Confucianisnt fctr theMctdern worlrl, etl. Daniel A. Bell :rnd F{ahnrchaibong (New York: Cambridgc LlnivcrsityP ress ,2003) ,9.

HUN,IAN RIC]HTS AND "VALUES IN ASIA"

Sangjinof SeoulNational Universitysuggestsha t students ro m unlver-sit ies n Korea, centersof "cultural authority," could draw on the Con-fucian tradit ion of respect or intel lectualel i tesan d henceplay a crucialrole in establishing society-wide ommitrnent on the need or improv-in g th e human rightssituat ion n Korea.53t ma,v e hat intel lectual l i tesar egranteduncommon (b y Vestern standards) mounts of respect n so-ciet ies hapedby Confucian radit ions, with the impiicat ion that hurnanrights act ivistsneed o target hi s group in part icular,as opposed o in-vest ing heir hopes n a mythical iberal izingmiddle class hat often sup-ports human rights reforrnsonly insofar as they maintairl a poli t ical or-de r conducive o the accumulat ionof rvealth.saThird, regardless f the substance r the moral just i f icat ion or one'sarguments, wareness f local tradit ions ma y shed ight on the appropn-at e attitude o be employedby human rights act ivists.For example,On -uma Yasuaki reminds us that "[ i ]n Ji lpar-reseulture, modesty s highlyvalued.Even if one believes n certain values,proselyt izing or them isregardedas arrogant, uncivi l ized, and counterproductive. nstead,on eshould f incl ways to induceothers to appreciate hesevalues n a qtrietan d modestmanner."55 hi s has mplicat ions or cross-cultural ri t ics ofhuman rightsviolat ions: nsteadof the high-decibel naming and shzrm-ing" approachs' hat is often seen n East Asia as high-rnindedand self-righteous, ve nby dissident ntel lectuals, ri t icism of hurnan ights viola-t ions n EastAsia is often more effective f i t is presentedn ir more subtleand ndirectway.Fourth, ocal tradit ionsmay alsomake one more sensit ive o th e possl-bi l i ty of alternat ive,nonlegalist icmechanisms or th e protect ion of thevital human interestsnormally securedby a rights regime n a Westerncontext.5T s Onuma (himself a professor of internat ional aw ) notes,

53Ha n Sangj in, Pol i t i calLiberal izat ion, tabi l i t i ' , nd HumanRights" (paperpresentedat the H; . rkone vorkshop,on f i lewi th author) , 21 .5aSee David Brown aud David Marti n Jones, "Democratizirtion and the Mvth of theLiberal rz ingvl iddleClasses," n DanielA. Bel l et al . ,Towards l l iber t l Democracy n Pa-cif icAsia (London and New )brk: Macmillan/St. Antony's Colle ge and St. Martin's Press,1995) . 78-1 06 .55Onuma Yasuaki, "In Quest of Intercivilizational Hurnan Rights:'Ur-riversalvs. Rela-tive'Human Rights Vieived frorn an Asian Perspective," Centrefor Asian PacificAffairs.Th e AsiaFoundat ion,OccasionalPaperno. 2,1996,4.-i 5Se e he discussion n the tol lowing chapter of th e "namrng an d shaming" i rpproachdefendedby Fluman Rights il/atch.5-If human r ights pract ices nd inst i tut ions efer by


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/ - )2 HUMAN RICiHTS"legalst ic thinking has been rather foreign to many Japanese . . to re -sort to juridical measures nd to enforceone's ights is not appreciatecl.Rather,one s expected o reirch he samegoal by resort ing o less orce-ful measures uc has parient negotiat ions,mediat ion,and other concil ia-tory measures."js n such a context, human rights act ivistscan suggesrnonjuridicalmechanisms or the protect ionof vital human nterests, m-phasizing hat legalmeansar e o be employedonly as a last esort.seIt would seem, hen, that strategicconsiderat ionsof pract ical rele-vance speak strongly in favor of local just i f icat ions or the valuesan dpract ices hat, in the Westernworld, are norrnally real ized hrougl-r hu -man rights regirne.Perhaps, owever, he deepest nd most controversialquest ion emains o be addressed: an one dentify aspects f East Asiancultural tradit ions relevantno t just in the strategicsense f how best opersuadeEast Asiansof the value of a human rights regime,bu t also nthe sense hat they may provide a nroral foundation for poli t ical prac-tices and institutions clifferent from the human rights regimes ypicallyfavored ir.rWesterncountries? t is to this topic that we now turn.

VRrur,s N AsrA vERSUSWEsrenNLreER.arrsM:JusrrErenr-E onRr DrrEERINcr,s

A human rights regime s supposed o protect ou r basichumanity-thefundamentalhuman goods(o r needs r interests)ha t underpinan y "rea-sonzrble" onceptionof human f lourishing.Bu t which human goods ar efundamental?There is l i t t le public dispute over rights againstmurder,torture, slavery,an d genocide(though, needless o say, many govern-mentscontinue o engagen nasty deedsoff the record).As Singaporeangovernmentoff icialBi lahari Kausikan puts it , "I t makesa great deal ofdif ference f the West nsistson humane standardsof behaviorby vigt 'r-ously protesting genocide, murder, forture, or slavery. Here there is rr

5EOnuma, "I n Questof Interciv i l i zat ionalRights, "4. See lsoAlbert H. Y. Chen, "NIc'-diation, Lit igation, and Justice: Confucian Reflections n a Moden.r Liberal Society," irtConfucianisrn or tbe Moderrt.World, ed. Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chai hong (Nerv York:Cambr idgeUniversi tyPress, 003) chap. 1 . Several r reas f conf l i c t , suchas t raf f i c atrt lindustrial accidents, hat would be dominated by private litigation in the United Statesaresettled by rdministrative procedures in China. '$Ti l l iamC. Jones points to the imperielroots of such pract ices nd suggestshat adrninist rat ivc gencies an alsoprotect and pro-mote freedom in China'sfutr-rre.Wil l iam C. Jones, "C-hinese aw and Lrberty'," n Redlntsof Freedom in Modarn China, ed. Vi l l iam C. Kirby (St,rr.rford: tanford flniversitv Press,2004),5s--r6.5eFor the view that egal ist i c uman r ights anguage sgeneral ly ounterproduct ivei 'e. .no t just n th e E:rstAsian context )givcn what i t i s ry ing to achicve, eeChar lesBlat tberg,"Two Conceptsof Cosrnopol i tanism" rns. n f i le wi th author) .

HUMAN RIGHTSAND'VALUES N ASIA"

Clear onsensus n a core of internat iorralaw that doesno t admit of anyl.rog"t io', on an y grounds."60However,bey


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referring to the many services e ha d performed for the ro,val amil1..Sulakexpla ins:

I did not . . . stake 'ry roundon an absoluteigl.rto free peech. y de -fense gainst he charge i l ise-maiest l as my innocence f the charge;my defense asmy loyalty o the King and he RoyalFamilyand,evenwhere discr.rssedhe us eof the charge f l ise*rajest l n currentSiarnesepoli t icalpract ice,t wa s to highlightabuse nd to point to the ways nwhich abusemightunderminehe monarchy,irther han o defer-rdnytheoretical ight to commit his action. am not affirming,nor would I af-f irnr,a right o commit ise-majest| .hi saspect f thecases part icularlyconcerned ith my beingSiamesend belongingo the Siameseulturaltradit ior-r.nr

In other words, Sulak aimed to persuade el low cit izens hat the dorni-nant poli t ical systemshould be replacedwith an alternat ive, elat ivelydemocrat icpoli t ical structure,bu t he made it expl icit that this dicl no tmean advocating he removal of the exist ing constraint on direct cri t i-cism of the Thai king. PerhapsSulak, ike manv Thais, would feeldeepll ,offencled, f no t personallyharmed, by an attack on the king. In such acase-where a constrainton the freedomof speech eems o be endorsedby both defendersand cri t ics of the prevail ing poli t ical system-chereshould be a strong presurnption52n favor of respecting his deviat ionfrom American-style ree speech.63Other examplesput forward by East Asian intel lectualsegarding hepossibi l i ty of narrowing the def init ion of vital human interestsmorethan would typical ly be he case n l iberal Western ountries-hence nar-rowing the l ist of rights that belong to the core of the human rightszone- include the ol lowing:

1. n Singapore,heres a aw hatempolvershe police nd mmigrat ionoff icerso "'test he urine or drugs f anypersonwho behavesn a suspi-6rSulak Sivaraksa. Buddhism and Human Rights," p: rper presented t the Bangkok

rvorkshop on Cul tural Sources f Human Rights n East Asia, March 1996 (o n f i le wi thauthor) .n) I d o not mean to der.ry hat this presumption can be overridden. For erarnple, the for-eign human rights advocate would not have an obligation to refrair.r rom crit iclueof theThai k ing if th e king rvere o cal l fo r an unj t rst i { iedvar againsta neighbor ing tate, ve n fal l Thais support this call. But such an eventuality is very unl ikelv (at least under the cur-rcnt king, who is widely admired an d recognized o be a benevolent uler ) , hence hestrong presumption in favor of deferring to the "Thai" constraint on free speech.6r At the Barrgkokworkshop (March 1996) , Char lesTaylor pointed out that relat ivelyuncontroversial aws againsthate speechalsoexist n Canada. It could be argued,horvever,that the Thai case s more of a deviation from American-style ree speechbecattse he coreof this deal s the r ight to cr i t i c ize ol i t i cal el lders, vhich spreciselyhe r ight beingcr l leelir l to question here.

c i o u s t n . t n t t c r . l t r h e r e s t t l t i . p o s i t i v e . r e h . r h i I i t a t i o n t r e l l t m C | l t i s c o m p t r l -, . r t t "t Joseph Chan comments that " l t ]his ac t would be seen by'WesterniJJr^t, a" s n .,njust i f iablcnvasionof privrrcy 'Bu t fo r someAsians hi s re -strict ionma y be seenas a legi t imate rade-o{f or th e valueof publ ic safetyan d heal th'"os

2. In democratic South Korea, each household is required to attendmontltty neighborhood meetings o receive government directives and dis-irrr *"t aflairs.'u What may be viewed as a minor inconvenience n Korea1rJ"rfa f.." certainly outrage most U'S' citizens' and it is likely that theU.S. Supreme lourt u'ould strike down a governmental policy that forcedcrrir.tr'ro associate or political purposes of this sort as a violation

o{ theFirst Amenclment. once again there seems o be more willingness in Ei-tstAra u-on, the general population to serve he common good by limitingtrl i"ta""f i"r".d.*, p..h"p, as a residr,ref the Confucian cultural tradition'

3 . Is lamic legalscholarandhumanr ightsac t i v i s tAbdul lah iA.An-Na' imo f f e rs t l re fo l l ow i ngex amp l e f ro rn l s l am i c c r i m i na l l a rv .Ac c o rd i r rg to l s -lamic aw , which is basedon th e Quran an d which Musl ims bel ieve o beth e l i teral an d final word of (iod, an d on the sunna, or tradi t ions of th eProph., Muhammad, theft is punishableby th e amputation of th e righthand an d homicideby exact retribution or paymentof rnonetarvcompcn-sat ion.A l l -Na ' im notes hrt t

Is lamic aw requires he state o ful f i l l i ts ohl igation o secure ocialan d economic ustrcearrd o ensuredecentstandards f living io r

al lits citizens before it can enforce thesepunishments' The law also pro-vides or very narrow defini t ionsof theseoffenses'makesan extensiverangeof defenses gainst he chargeavai lable o the accused erson'an d requires trict standards f proof ' Nloreover' slamic aw demandstotal fairnessand equality in law enforcement. n m,vview. the prereq-uisite condi t ions for the enforcelnentof thesepunishnrentsal e ex -tremely difficult to satisfy n practice and are certainly unlikely to ma-terialize n any lvluslim country in the foreseeable uture'";

Notwi thstanding th e practical i rnpediments to th e legi t imate implcmen-tat ion of corporeal punishment under Is lamic la q An-Na'im argues that

6aJoseph han, Th eAsran hal lenge

o Universal umanRights: Phi losophicalp-praisal," n Htrman Rights nd Internatictnal elationsn tbe AsiaPacific'ed'James ' H'Tang London:Pinter, 995), -5, 6 (quotingWon Kan Seng' The Real World^of umanRights,"aclclressr he Secondrorld bonfe ence n HutnanRights'Vienna'1993)'6 lb id .66KimDaeJung," IsCul tureDest iny?",Fore ignAf fa i rs 'November/December1994 '190 '6-Abdul lah iA.An-Na' rm, . .To* 'ardaCross-Cul tura lApprt lachtoDef in in ,g ln terna-tional Standards f Human Rights: he Meaningof Cruel, nhuman'or Degrading reat-mentor Punishmelt," r',Huur), Rightsn Crnss-C'",lturulerspectitt(s: Qltest or Con-senszsPhiladelphia:niversity f Pennsylvaniaress, 992)'34'

HUMAN RIGHTS AND 'VALUF]S IN ASIA" 77


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i ii1i 76 HUMAN RI(;HTSIslamic criminal aw is endorsed n principleby the vast maiority of Mus-l ims today,68 hereasmost 'Westernl iberalsand human rights act ivisrswould almostcertainly egard t as a violat ion of th e human right not tc rbe subjected o cruel, nhuman,or degrading reatmentor punishment.Expanding the Set of Hunnn Rights or an East Asian Context

The EastAsianchallenge, owever, s not simply an argument or short-ening he set or rights ypical ly endorsedby membersof Western iberalsocieties. n someareas, here may be :r case for utidening the scope offund;rmental human goods to be protected by a rights regime. In Japa-nesesociety, or exarnple,well-developed mpatheticabil i ty is regardedas one of the necessary ondit ions for the pursuit of the good l i fe. Suchabil i ty is normally acquiredvia warm, int imate human relat ionships nearly stages f l i fe, eadingTeruhisaSean d Rie Kar:atsu o argue hat "anew right could be included n the categoryof human rights: a right tcrbe brought up in an int imate cornmunity."5e

Consider also he value of f i l ial piety,what Confuciansconsider o be"the essentialway of learning to be human.":0 East Asian societ ies n-f luencedby Confucianism strongly emphasize he idea that adult chi l-dren have a duty to care or elderlyparents,Tl duty to be forsakenonlvin the most exceptional ircumstances.;2hus, whereas t is widely seen

68Ibid.6eTeruhisa Se and Rie Karatsu, "A Conception of Human Rights Basedon .f rpaneseCul ture:Promot ingCross-cul tural eb: r tes, " ournal oi Hrtman RigDrs, ol .3, no. .3 Sep-tember2004) , 283. He and Ri e point to the possibi l i tv hat such nerv ights canimprovethe hurnan rights schemeprevailing ir.rWesterncultures (ibid., 2134-85), hough my vrew rsth,rt well-developeclernpathetrc ability is not nearly so certtral to the Vestern liberalisntand is rrot l ikely to be adopted as the foundation for new rights in the West.;0 Tu V/ei-ming, Oonfucianism in an Historicdl Perspectit'e, nstitute of Easr AsianPhi losophies, ccasional aperan d Monograph Ser ies o. 13 , 1989, 15 .t1 Interestingly, his moral outlook still seems o inform the practices of Asian tmrnt-gr ints to other societ ies. ccording o th e Ncp YorkTinrcs (1 1 Jul l '2001) , ferver han on ein five whites in the Llnited Stateshelp care for or provide financial support for their prr-ents, n-laws, or other relirtives,compared with 28 percent of African Americans, 34 per-cerr tof H ispanic Amer icans, nd 42 percentof Asian Amer icans.Those wh o provi r lc th cmost care also feel he most gui l t that they are not doing enough. Almost three-quartersotAsian Americans say hey should do rnore for their pilreuts, conrpared rvith two-thirds otHispanics, slightlv more than half of African Americans,and fewer than half of whites.': The obl igat ions f I i l ia l prety do nt>ten d wrth the deLr th f one'sparents:equ: l l f ifnor more mpor tant , ar e he mourning per iod rnd he subsequenti tLr ; r l s lesignedo sl lowongoir.rg espect or orre's arents. n Korea, for example, the large majority of families en-dorse he practice of ancesror vorship. Gcir Flelgesen,Denrocracy and Authority itr Koraa:The Cultural Dimension in K


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lri il178 HUMANRIGHTSof the human rights regimean d less mportant values s no t part icularlyconrroversial n East Asia.;eHowever, nrany otherwise progressiveib -eral voices n the Westst i l l seemcompelledby a tradit ion of universal istmoral reasoning ha t proposeson e final solut ion to th e questionof th eideal poli ty ye t paradoxical lydraws only on the moral aspirat ionsan dpoli t ical pract ices ound in Westernsociet ies'

On e obvious mplicat ion of these eflect ionss to allow fo r the po551-bi l i ty of just i f iabledeviat ions ro m Vestern-stylehuman rights regimesin EastAsia. f otherwisecrit ical EastAsian voicesendorse heir govern-ment 's "autocrat ic" measures,

Westernhuman rights act ivistsneed tothink twice before intervention. Let me put it differently. Given the ex-

tent of human suffering n today'sworld, with so many obvious an d un -controversial iolat ionsof the minimal condit ions of human well-hei19,it is dif f icult to understandwh y 'Westernhuman rights groups wouldwant to spend(scarce) ime an d money crit iquing hurnan ights "viola-t ions" that would not be viewedas suchby EastAsianswith no part ictr-lar axe to grind.

Cnoss-Cur-ruRRrDteloGUESoN HuuaN RtcHrs:'Wnar Is rue PotNr?Bu t it is not just a matter of defendingparochialattachmentso palt icu-lar nonliberal moral i t ies.Far fron.r rguing ha t th e universal ist iscout:seon human rights should be entirely displacedwith part icular, radit ion-sensit ivepoli t ical language, ome crit ics of \Western-stylehuman righrshave cri t icized iberals or not taking universal i tyseriouslyenough, orfai l ing to do what must be done to make human rights a truly universrlideal. If the ult imate ai m is an internationalorder basedon universal l l 'acceptedhuman rights, the lVestneeds o recognize ha t human rightshave been n constantevolut ion an d allow for the possibi l i tyof posit ivenon-'Western ontribut ions to this process.Such cri t ics argue fo r morecross-cultural ialogues n human rights,with the perspectiveha t Asianproposals for improving the current "'Westcentric" human rights regime

7eI leaveaside he questionof cultural differences hat may aff'ectdifferent ways of Jerer-nr iningt l recoreoihumal r igl t tsu, i thinsociet ies.Forexample,newl lr r i vedHmor lgi r t r t r t i -gron,J,n the United States Jicve that ritual ki l l ingsof arrimals s necessar.vo heal sick fanr-ii y -.-b"rr, but once the practice becameknown to residentsof Merced, California, the.ity pass.d an ordinance ba'ning rhe slaughterof Iivestock and porrltry within city l i rni ts'see Anne Facliman,The Spirit catches You and You Fall Dou'n: A lTnong chi ld, FIet Afiter'ican Doctors, and tbe col l ision of Two cultures (New Yrrk: Farrar, Straus.an.l Giroux'1997), 107-8. Were he Hrnong ro frame their g,rievarrccsn terms of the ar.rguagef humrl l l

r ights,thcy woulcl have a good case o arguc hat their bssicrights arc being vrolated'

1I' ,ho,rldbe welcomed,no t feared.8,,_Theserit ics-let us label he m "cos-

rnopo l i t an . , , u . 'o f , l i be ra l i sm, ' -havesuggestedvar iousmeanso f im-ilil;;;. phi loropht."l .coherencend poli t icalappealof human rights.I n th i sSect lon ' I d i scuss the i rp roposa lsandra i sesomedoubts regard ingtheir feasibilitY'As m..rrro.r!d, here s it t le debateovef the desirabi l i tyof a core se tofhurnanr ights 'suchaSprohib i t ionsagainstslavery,genocide,murder, tor-,^rir.' proio'1ged arbitiary detention' and system'ltic racial discrimina-;; . ' i th.rJ rlghts have b::o-: part of internat ionalcustomary law'and they ur. ,ri,

contested in the public rhetoric. of the internationalarena.Bu t poli t ical thinkers an d activistsaround th e world ca n an d dotaked i f f e ren ts idesonrnanypress inghunranr igh t s . concerns tha t f a l l* ir id. what Michael Walzer erms he "minimal an d universalcode'"82T h i s g r a y a r e a o fd e b a t e i n c l ud e s c r i m i n a l l a w' f a m i l y l a q w o m en ' s;ft; socialancleconomic ights, he rights of indigenouspeoples, ndthe attempt to universalize 'western-style democratic pla.ctices'For cos-mopoli tans, he question s: how.can th e current"thin" I ist of universalhu-"r, rights be expattded o include solnecontested ights?

Tb e Peri lsof InclusiueDialoguesOnuma Yasuaki proposesan "intercivi l izat ional approach to human;;h,;; that wouli enrai l dialoguebetweenmembersof "civi l izat ions"*i h ,h . ai m of achieving the-widest possibleconsensuson human

s0There is less eason o welcome such proposals if they are l ikelv to be m.otivatedbyeconomic or pol i t ical self-interest,but it st i l l does not mean that seeminglvself-interestedproposalsshould be rejected,a prrori' In reaction to a suggestionby thtn Malaysian PrimeMinister Mahathir bin lvlohamail tlrat the Ur.riversalDeclaration of Human Rights mightbe in need of review to al low for more input from developing nations, then U'S' Secretaryof StateMadeleineAlbright vowed that the United Stateswould be "relentless" in oppos-in g review of the UDHR. l-eavingaside he point that the united Statesdoes a poor io b of[vlng up to the social ",ld ".nlt.,"-i. rights enshrined in the UDHR' the problem

with Al-brigf,t's position is the assu'-rptio' th"ith" particular rights affirmed in the UDHR shouldbe -valid for eternity. As Pete, Van Ness puis it, "tv{ahathir should instead [of being con-demned] har,ebeen encouraged o make a concrete proposal' becauseone of the bastc re-quirementsof achieving and sustainingconsensus s to be prepared to reshapeglobal star-r-dardswheneve, betteririnciples ".. Jir.ou.r"d"' Virn Ness, ed' Debating Human Rigbts(London:Rout ledge,1999) , I 1.81Terror ist r . r ips that ust i fy he mass i l l ing of c iv i l iansar ean obviousexcept ion' t rsinteresting o i.rt.,^h,r*'"u"r, th,rt eren Osarna bin l,aden does not straightiorwardly pro-claim resionsibi t iw for the September11 at tacks,presumablyon th e groutrds ha t thiswould underminehis baseof suppor t .82l l l ichael -$/alzer,lnterpretition and Social Criticisnr (Cambridge: Harv:rrd UniversrtyPress,1987). 24. Seealso %lzer, Tl i i f t antl Thin (Notre Dame: Ll.iversitl' of Notre f)rmePress. 994) .

I

ltili l

FIL]NIAN RIC;F{TSAND 'VALU}']S IN ASIA'' I] I


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[ "I80 HUMAN RIGHTSrights.83 ucha dialoguewould seek o address he concern hat most in -ternat ionalhulnan rights groups nterpretan d priori t ize rights accordingto the Western iberal tradit ion and that internat ional human rights in -struments have not ye t adequately ncorporated non-\Western lews.Onuma's proposal, horvever, s not without problems.Fo r example, heboundariesbetween ivi l izat ions, f t l-rey xist at al l , are nevereasy o de -l ineate,especial lywhen considering he fact thereare disputes ver theseissues venwithin part icular radit ions.More serious, his dialoguewouldexclude hosenot belonging o the maior rel igious, hi losophical, nd cul-tural tradit ions:marginal ized roupsan d ndividualswho may be part icu-larly vulnerable o human rights abuses.saor example,membersof smallindigenous ribes,sex workers, refugees, nd peoplewho are mental ly llwould not have their interests representedat the intercivilizational dia-logue on human rights.Addressing hi s problem by increasing art icipat ion,however,wouldraise its own set of problems. Amitai Etztoni, for example, proposes aworldwide moral dialogue hat would not be imited to representatives fthe major civi l izat ions: Before lve can expect o se eglobal mores thathave he compellingpower of thoseof varioussociet ies,he cit izens f theworld wil l have o engage n worldwide moral dialogues."85 ut does tmean that f ive bi l l ion people must part icipate n th e global dralogue?Leaving aside he issueof c ost, the main obstac le such megalogues ace sgetting participants to agreeupon anything more than vagueaspirationsand empty plat i tudes. ut simply: he more nclusive he deliberat ions,hemore difficr.rlt t will be to arrive at a nypolitically meaningful resolutions.

So part icipat ionneeds o be imited. One might reasonablyargue hata representat ive ampleof leaders nd cit izens rom around the world, ifthe sample were kept small enough, would be able to reach agreementon the global values hat are supposed o guide and constrain policy-makers. Bu t this leads o a number of questions:Should the dialogueinvolvepoli t ical eaders, iplomats, nternat ional awyers, eaders f rel i-g i t - rusradi t ions, cndemics.epresentat ivesf nongovenr entalorgani -zat ions, ordinary cit izens,or a combination of these?Ho w many fromeachgroup? How many frorn eachcountry? f the outcomesof thesede -l iberat ions are meant to command international egit imacy and trump

8r Onuma, "Toward an Interciv i l i zat ional pproach o Human Rights. "saSee Neve Gordon, ed., From the Margins ol Gbbal ization: Critical PerspectiresonHunan Rights (Lanham, MD: Lexir.rgtcrn o


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rIIi

Tbe Failurcs of Cross-Lulttrral DialogrtesTh e problemsnoted above are no t simply theret icalossibi l i t ies.n th elast decadeor so, there have been many atternpts o pu t forward trulvuniversirlmoral values,and the response as ranged rom hosti l i ty tc , ti -dif ference.None ha s come even close o supplant ing he UniversalDec-larat ion of Human Rights as a normative frame of reference, otwit l . r-standing he ongoingcontroversy egarding he "Westcentric"perspecrivcof this document.

The amemptb, va group of former headsof state o formulate "A Uni-versal Declarat ion of Human Responsibi l i t ies"sTllustrates olne of th eproblemswith global dialogues.This declarat ionwas supposed o corn-plenrent he UDHR, but i ts main effect would have been o di lute it .Most of the declarat ionconsistsof vacuous moral izing. Art icle 3 rs no tatypical: "Everyoneh:rs he responsibi l i tv o promote good and to avoidevi l in al l things." Suchplat i tudesar e not necessari ly armful. but thevserve o draw attent ion rom the real ly mportant rights hat do need obe enforced.The more seriousproblem is that some sectionsof the declararionwould be poli t ical lydangerous f they were t :rkenseriously.Considerar -t icle 14 : "The freedom of the media o inform the public and to cririciz-einst i tut ions of societyan d governmentalact ions, ,vhichs essentialor aiust sociery, rust be r"rsed ith responsibi l i tyand discret ion.Freedonrofth e media carriesa special esponsibi l i ty or accurateand truthful re -porring. Sensatiorraleport ing that degrades he human personan d dig-nity must at al l t inresbe avoided." I t is nterest ing o note that the groupof former headsof state ncludes he father of the "Asian values" debate,SingaporeelclerstatesmanLee Kuan Yew. In Singapore,Lee has ofrenadvanced imilar argumentsabout the need or "responsible" ournalisrnthat "a t al l t i rnes"avoids sensational eport ing ha t degradeshe hurnarnperson and dignirv." The result? Singaporeannewspapershave beencompletely defanged, nd foreign newspapersik e the Asidn Wall StreetJournal and the Internat ional Herald Tribune have had ro pa y hugedamages or having "defamed" membersof the Lee amily. Not surpns-ingly, art icle 14 me t with vigorous opposit ion from iournrl l ists.ss uc hopposit ion ensured hat the UniversalDeclarat ionof F{uman Responsr-bi l i t iesnever did get far in the UN GeneralAssembly.se

8- See http://rvww.interactioncouncil.org/udhr/declaration/udhr.pdf (visited 2 Nt.rreh200 .ss h t t p : / /www.wpfc .o rg / i nder . i sp?pagc=Ner . vs l e t t e r%,20Decembcr%,2021 'L2( )199Eivis i ted2 N{arch200.5) .s '" fhe L-INES(jO f for t to c levelop A Colnmon Framework for the Ethics of th e 2l ' '( lenturv" sinr i larhende. l n tai turc.

In short, he aspirat ion o developvaluesof mtlre universalscopewithsubstantive ontentma y no t be realiza,ble'e0,Cross-culturalialoguewil llead ro eirher emprl ',piat i t t tdesor poli t ical lv controversialconclusronsr:r.^lrr o be relectecl y affectedconstituents'Th e good news is that noT:'l':"J;;;';;;;..i.t done o th e human rishts movement oth.erhrn'l L ra t " ' r Ioerhaps'wastlng runqs that could have been more productively spent],r"owhere).he truth of th e matter s that only philosophers nd theolo-: i : '": ; i1't ; d;;piy concernedabout th e r.reedo secure rulv universalh ' " - - -l ounda t ions to rhumanr igh t s .Forgover r - rmentsconcernedwi th imp le -f f P n t i n g h u n l a n l l g n t s , n - a t i o n a l l a w s u s u a l | 1 . 5 e r V e a s - t h e n ( ) r l l . l 3 t i v eur!ur-^-o ' -r- 'r local human rights groups (o r their funct ionalpoint of reterence'-r o.^"ivalent). it is suthcient o ground their work ir l th e local valuesan d,r-#;; ; , i . , *.rr ',b.. , of tlt. communit l ' us e to make senseof their,"ir i f i t . r. Fo r internat ionalhuman rights organizat ions,much of the*rrf . *l f consist n exposing he ga p berweerr ublic al legiance o uil-; ; ; t ; .Jrights (s*ch, ' ' tht"' lght t-toi o be tortured) an d sa d reali ty of; ; ; ; i ; * ,bJr. . They wi l l no t waste im e wri t ing about or del iherat ingil:;;,?. ; ; ; iobi l i ry of pract icesha t everyone ondemnsat the levelofo.i.r.iot.. Suchorganizat ionswil l also provide unds an d expert ise o lo -i;i;"'J;";;l li,r, ''on rigl.rtsorganizatio.s, a'd here too the.leck of ai*ft ""*..tal foundatio,1- o' h''11"tt rights is not an obstacle:

every-body agrees n th e sharedends't ir ls"i , no t to deny, of course' that human rights organizat ionsen -counterethical challenges uring th e courseof their work' Bu t pract i-t ioners,uot academic heorists, ar e best placed tt > dentif 'vsuch chal-lenges. et us then turn to ref lect ions n dialogues ha t involve he viewsof iract i t ioners.Th e next chapterwil l discusshosechallenges'vith par-t icular focus on the East Asian regicln, ol lowed b. vson-re ormative re -f lect ions ha t ma y provide somepract icalguidance or dealingwith th echallenges.

'0 FredDal l m . r y r xpre \ \ r \a n to reopt i t n t s f i c t rw : " The po l r r t f coml 'a ra r t r t . po l i t i e ' r ltheory, n .y ui.uu, s ireciselv ,n ,l.tou" oward a tnore genuineuniversal ism'and beyondthe ,purious 'rr-riu"rr"^lit,v'clairneciby the Western canon and by some recent i l rtel lectualmovements.,,Dallmayr, .,Bevond Monologue: For :r Comparative Poli t ical Theorl'," Per-spect iues n Pol i t i cs, .ol .2, no. Z (June2004) , 2-53' do no t mean to imply that crnss-cul turaldialogu" "r,d.o-p"r"t ive t i reor iz ing hould no t be dune (qurtc hc opposi te) 'bu tthe main aim"world be to identify :rrcrs of iusti f iable nroral di{fere'ce, thus teachirlg us"about the diversity arrd richnessof u'hat huma' beings may reasonrbly priz'e'anJ aboutth e mpossibi l i tyoi reconci l ingal l they pr ize ' just a s ingle deal " (David Wong, "Cotn-parative phi losoohv: Chinese ud V.stein," Stanford Encyclctpedia f Philosophy,http:llplato.stanford.ei.,/",-rtri"./.o-parphil-chiwes/, 9, visited 18 February 20{)5)' ;rs weil aslearning from other cultures with the airn of improl ing fl:rws n one'sown culture'

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Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy_Human Rights and Values in Asia