Cultural relativist challenge to the universality of human rights and reconciliation efforts for the debate

Human rights prescribe universal standards. The peoples and countries of the world, however, present an enormous diversity based on tradition, culture, religion, etc. that cannot be ignored. The tension between the universal standards and diversity has led to the criticism of human rights known as "cultural relativism". Those who put forward this criticism, emphasize that human rights are incompatible with some features of their own culture and state that these rights cannot be valid for their own culture. This study aims to answer the question of "how can we reconcile the universality of human rights and the cultural relativism" The aim of the study is to present a proposal for the reconciliation of the debate, based on the efforts in the doctrine to reconcile universality and cultural relativism in human rights. In this framework, it first started with the concepts of universality and cultural relativism in the context of human rights. Depending on the definition of human rights, two basic meanings of universality as "transhistorical universality" and "prevalence/consensus in international law" are determined. Since cultural relativist criticisms have passed from Anthropology to the theory of human rights, the details of how cultural relativism emerged in the Anthropology and for what meaning and purpose it is used are mentioned. Then, how cultural relativism, which emerged in Anthropology, emerged as a critique of human rights in a concrete way is discussed. In this context, the Human Rights Statement published by the American Anthropological Association in 1947 is examined because it is a text that reveals the main points of cultural relativistic claims. After the discussion of universalism-cultural relativism is put forward, the prominent efforts in the doctrine for reconciling the debate were examined and evaluations are made about both the discussion and the theoretical basis on which the reconciliation of the debate is possible. In this context, some dangers and contradictions brought about by universality and cultural relativism are examined. Finally, based on the criticisms/evaluations regarding reconciliation efforts, it is claimed that a proposal based on intercultural communication/interactions and John Rawls' minimalist human rights theory can solve the problem of reconciling universality and cultural relativism.