Identity, Differences and Universality of Human Rights

In contemporary international law, the human rights is considered among basic and nontransferable rights; rights on which the very living of human beings is based. Human rights do not mean the rights which are enjoyed by human beings, but the rights that humans enjoy simply because they are humans. That is; to enjoy those rights there is no need to various social, political or religious conditions; but being a human being is enough.For this reason, due to their nature, human rights should be universal, transcending the limits of time and space. Therefore, universality is one of the main features of human rights which has been emphasized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is considered to be the source of power of human rights.The question is about the secret of universality of human rights. Various identities have their roots in a number of differences either stemming from religious discrepancies or cultural, political, racial or ethnic ones. The necessary condition for human rights to be universal from a philosophical viewpoint it that all cultures should be taken into considerations or, at least, common denominator among all cultures is recognized. From a sociological viewpoint, universality requires acceptance of human rights by all states and nations.For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not universal according to the above criteria and, as asserted by some researchers such as Rebecca Wallace, human rights assume various forms according to social, economic and cultural characteristics of the society where they are defined. Therefore, no single frame has ever been determined for describing human rights and this has caused problems for international legal system.It seems that the most basic commonalties should be sought in the very essential identity of human beings.Who is Man and what is his essential identity? Is this the same human who has been introduced to us by prophets as a creature with potential to represent God through innate dignity, who was created according to all-encompassing divine wisdom and set off to seek a lofty goal; or as put by Thomas Hobbs and Machiavelli “human is wolf of human” and lacks any real value?Is Islamic worldview, the human beings are “from God” and “go back to God” and are capable of attaining human dignity and perfection and if this identity is recognized when formulating his rights, other differences could be remedied in the light of this essential unity which is not contradictory to universality of human rights. For this reason, since Islamic human rights is based on the natural commonalties and also respects other cultures according to the principle of peaceful coexistence, it is universal.The western human rights, however, is rooted in an atheistic and liberalistic culture which has ignored the true identity of humans instead of thinking about their perfection by relying on such ideas as humanism, ignoring the origin of the universe, determinism and hedonism and; as a result, it poses a serious challenge to any type of ideological, political, cultural and racial difference, and subsequent universality of human rights because every one of those differences gives rise to a different type of identity.The almighty God has revered humans and felicitated Himself on creation of Man, singling out Man out of other creatures just for Himself. In the Islamic worldview, Man is “Caliph of God” and the pick of creation for which the whole universe has been created. The Wise God has granted potentials to Man to help him attain his human perfection and has considered obligations and rights to activate those potentials among which one can mention human rights. As mentioned in the introductory part of the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, “Major rights and general freedoms considered by Islam, are part of the religion of Muslims.”