Debating Human Rights. Critical Essays from the United States and Asia

✍ Scribed by Peter Van Ness (ed.)

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 304
• Series: Asia's Transformations
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Human rights debates can provoke strong reactions, particularly among people of different cultural backgrounds. The debate over Asian values and the use of human rights diplomacy are the most obvious manifestations of divisions between Asia and the West and reflect particular world views and historical legacies.
In this new book, scholars from the United States and several Asian countries debate fundamental issues such as 'Asian values', 'peaceful evolution' and cultural imperialism. Provocative and challenging essays analyse the debate between East and West, presenting critical perspectives on globalization and human rights diplomacy.
Debating Human Rights is an original contribution to a vital area of debate. It presents a uniquely wide diversity of perspectives on controversial issues and demonstrates how scholars and activists who view the world very differently can nonetheless move these debates forward in a search for common ground.-Amazon.ca

✦ Table of Contents

CONTENTS
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
PETER VAN NESS
PART 1
Issues in dispute
1 From human rights to human dignity 25
CHANDRA MUZAFFAR
2 The human rights debate in an era of globalization:
hegemony of discourse 32
NIKHIL AZIZ
3 Asia as a fount of universal human rights 56
EDWARD FRIEDMAN
4 An Asian perspective on human rights and freedom
of the press 80
KISHORE MAHBUBANI
PART 2
Human rights in Greater China
5 East meets West: human rights in Hong Kong 101
LINDA BUTENHOFF
CONTENTS
viii
6 Developmentalism and China’s human rights policy 120
MICHAEL J.SULLIVAN
7 Human rights as identities: difference and
discrimination in Taiwan’s China policy 144
SHIH CHIH-YU
PART 3
Women’s rights
8 Reinventing international law: women’s rights as
human rights in the international community 167
RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY
9 From Vienna to Beijing: women’s human rights
activism and the human rights community 184
MANISHA DESAI
PART 4
Human rights and international relations
10 Human rights and development aid: Japan after
the ODA Charter 199
HOSHINO EIICHI
11 Human rights problems and current Sino-American
relations 232
ZHU FENG
12 From judge to participant: the United States as
champion of human rights 255
DANIEL WESSNER
Conclusion 278
PETER VAN NESS
Index 282