Human Rights: What and Who Made Them Divide the World?
Vladimir Makei is Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus (since August 2012).
Resume The human rights debates, which have been high in the past two decades, have proven futile. They increasingly make it clear that it is impossible to change attitudes that are enrooted in centuries-old specific cultural, religious, and other underpinnings. The issue of human rights has been looming large on the global politics agenda over the past two decades. Indeed, international relations have been increasingly viewed and conducted through the prism of human rights. Furthermore, human rights have been elevated by the international community in terms of importance to peace and security. This shift in global attitudes was duly reflected in the UN documents. In September 2005, at its 60th session, the UN General Assembly adopted the World Summit Outcome Resolution 60/1, which called, inter alia, for strengthening UN human rights mechanisms.
Meanwhile, no other issue on the international agenda appears currently to be as much politicized and divisive as human rights. The division basically relates to the primacy that different states and groups of states attach either to individual or collective human rights. This article attempts to demonstrate that approaches to human rights stem from the countries’ specific historical experience of development, which in some cases forged a centralized and collective nature of societies, whereas in others they were conducive to decentralization and individualism. Understanding the historical reasons behind other countries’ different stance on human rights may contribute to non-confrontational international relations.
