Abstract
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders...those are some of the many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) around the world based on the protection of human rights. Given they are international organisations, does it mean human rights are universal, i.e. they apply to everyone? The first step to answer this question would be to refer to the foundations of the universal concept. We might think of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, in 1948) as a main source, but in fact the notion of universal human rights is much older. With a flashback in the history of human rights theories, it is then possible to point out the problem of a relative Western conception of rights presumably applying to everyone. This peculiarity has been underlined through the doctrine of cultural relativity. More than fifty years after the vote of the Declaration, raise some delicate questions: can we go as far as to say that the Declaration of Human Rights is as universal as it pretends? The world is a gathering of states whose cultures and history are different, so how can a common ideal applied to them without destroying their specificities? Is it in the world interest to spread a similar way of life and thought? "The man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains" wrote Rousseau, a French philosopher of the XVIIIth century, in his book Du Contrat Social (The Social Contract). Actually human beings have, for ages, wanted to claim their rights as a will to liberate themselves.
