For many years since the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, there has been a great schism between universalism and cultural relativism. Many people believe that the human rights framework is not universal in the sense that it does not apply to all people everywhere. It all begins with the language of Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “all men are created equal in dignity and human rights” the idea seems to be that it is indeed true that men and not women are created equal. In today’s world men still hold high positions politically economically as well as socially. This is why the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women or CEDAW treaty body sought to rectify some of the issues that the UDHR could not cover when it came to women. However, with both UDHR and CEDAW there are still more challenges when we come to cultural practices within different societies. For example, a cultural practice such as Female Genital Cutting or most commonly …show more content…
It is the belief that all human beings are sacred to the extent that they deserve the right to live and work and live a healthy life. The fact remains that the committee members from most western countries did not consider how other societies or cultures in Africa and other non-western nations may work. Culture or shared ideas, values, and norms are considered extremely valuable in many countries. A definition of cultural relativism assumes that no moral principles can be applied in all cultures (globalpolicy.org) Therefore, the idea of what is wrong and what is right is not black and white as the human rights framework seems to imply, but rather a line that consistently needs evaluation. Some cultures beliefs have practices that may seem to be barbaric to the rest of the world and yet very normal within that particular