Jane K. Cowan

As with most edited volumes, some contributions to this work are better (in the sense of being more generally insightful as opposed to being narrowly specific) than others. A connecting theme is the challenge the idea of human rights presents to the universalism/relativism debate. "This discourse is animated by a fundamental tension between, on the one hand, the desire to establish universal human rights and, on the other, the awareness of cultural differences, which seems to negate the possibility of finding common ground on which to base such rights. Hence, the most serious and still ongoing debate about human rights invites us to chose between universalism and cultural relativism." Attempts to resolve this tension are offered.… (mer)