T H E O L O G O S - Prešovská univerzita v Prešove

Bożena Drzewicka
aggregate as well as in a reasonable recapitulation. The sources
of basic rights named in this Charter are: the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (of the United Nations), the European Convention
on the Protection of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms, the Social
Charters, approved of by the Community and the Council of Europe,
as well as the verdicts of the Court of Justice of the European Communities
and the European Court of Human Rights.
The Asian values are analysed with reference to Confucianism and
Neo-Confucianism, philosophical Taoism (the “t’ao school”), Buddhism
but also to Islam 1 . In the past, there was hardly any mention of human rights
or of related ideas or values in Asia. Unlike Europe, that continent has no
tradition of protecting the human rights. Due to a persistent functioning
in a semi-feudal social order, nearly the entire Asian region had no good
basis for the development of a consciousness of human rights. Unambiguously,
the social order ensured the priority of a society with a clear
hierarchy rather than of the individual. Therefore, hardly any reflections
on the individual, or on humanism in the wider sense, can be referred to.
The values which are associated with human rights and their protection by
specialized institutions could not be promoted in Asia until the period that
followed World War II. Such values were included in new constitutions of
certain Asian nations, in fact, imposed by the victorious great powers, especially
by the United States. A convincing example is Japan, where all possible
democratic institutions formally exist. Neither in China nor elsewhere
in Asia could we trace, in the history of political or philosophical concepts,
any mention of human dignity as a justification of individual rights 2 .
This epoch, characterized by globalization, seems to be one in which
the confronting of values, including the human rights, across civilizations
has a growing importance. Such confrontations are important both in
international politics and in international standardizing 3 . Their significance
can also be observed in present-day norms of the international law,
within the hard and soft law. Thus the contemporary international law
and its doctrine are especially interested in the issue in question 4 . The
international protection of human rights and the related humane interna-
1
M.K. Nawaz, The Concept of Human Rights in Islamic Law, “Howard Law Journal”
1965, No 11, p. 320-33; M.T. Franck, Human Rights in Third World Perspective, Dobbs
Ferry, Oceana, 1982, p. 34-53.
2
A.H. Robertson, J.G. Merrills, Human Rights in the World: An Introduction to the Study
of International Protection of Human Rights, Manchester, 1992, p. 40-64.
3
R. Kuźniar, Human rights and international relations, “The Polish Quarterly of International
Affairs”, Summer 1998, p. 25-58.
4
For a detailed discussion see: C.C. Goud, Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights,
Cambridge University Press 2004.
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