ON THE COMPATIBILITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS WITH THE VALUES OF NON-WESTERN CULTURES

Notwithstanding human rights is a concept which sinks its roots in the western political and philosophical tradition, the values which underlies human rights may be traceable in different cultures. This article seeks to probe the potential global acceptance of the concept of human rights providing a sketch on the level of compatibility of human rights with the Asian values, the African tradition and the Islamic culture. Therefore, the article makes use of a comparative approach to analysis non-western philosophical cum political standing on human rights vis-à-vis the consolidated conception of human rights. The findings underline that, even though relevant reasons of conflict between non-western values and human rights persist, there are also margins of compatibility between them which would partially disprove the widespread presumption that human rights cannot definitely be compatible with the values of non-western cultures.