Freedom of Religion and the Relativity of Human Rights

Human rights are a central common denominator in global politics – but they often only fulfil this function if cultural relativity is ignored. In this volume, we use the example of the human right to freedom of religion (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 18) to show that human rights are rooted in Latin-European concepts and are therefore culturally relative. We discuss this relativity with regard to interpretations of religious freedom in Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Christian cultures. These examples demonstrate that our understanding of human rights is merely a product of negotiation. This, in turn, has enormous consequences for politics: We cannot assume that cultures which do not share Latin-European concepts, that are closely linked to Christian ideas, will adopt the human rights concepts without revision. The Declaration of Human Rights is therefore not a quasi-metaphysical foundation of politics, as we might wish, but the result of committed negotiation processes. Only an understanding of human rights that integrates the fundamental differences in the history and justifications of the freedom of religion into the political debate is capable of establishing a consensus on the validity of human rights.

Joachim Willems, Oldenbourg; Helmut Zander, Bonn; Mathieu Cudré-Mauroux, Fribourg, Switzerland.