Human rights : a political and cultural critique / Makau Mutua.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mutua, Makau.

Series:

Pennsylvania studies in human rights

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human rights.

Democratization.

Civil society.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and with it a profusion of norms, processes, and institutions to define, promote, and protect human rights. Today virtually every cause seeks to cloak itself in the righteous language of rights. But even so, this universal reliance on the rights idiom has not succeeded in creating common ground and deep agreement as to the scope, content, and philosophical bases for human rights. Makau Mutua argues that the human rights enterprise inappropriately presents itself as a guarantor of eternal truths without which human civilization is impossible. Mutua contends that in fact the human rights corpus, though well meaning, is a Eurocentric construct for the reconstitution of non-Western societies and peoples with a set of culturally biased norms and practices. Mutua maintains that if the human rights movement is to succeed, it must move away from Eurocentrism as a civilizing crusade and attack on non-European peoples. Only a genuine multicultural approach to human rights can make it truly universal. Indigenous, non-European traditions of Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas must be deployed to deconstruct-and to reconstruct-a universal bundle of rights that all human societies can claim as theirs.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1. Human Rights as a Metaphor

Chapter 2. Human Rights as an Ideology

Chapter 3. Human Rights and the African Fingerprint

Chapter 4. Human Rights, Religion, and Proselytism

Chapter 5. The African State, Human Rights, and Religion

Chapter 6. The Limits of Rights Discourse

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780812204155

0812204158

OCLC:

859160657