Universal Human Rights And The International Legal System

Up until this point, I have steered clear from a prescriptive theorization of human rights and maintained a descriptive stance in which I have offered the naturalist description on the way in which we come to think of universal human rights and moreover, offered an explanation which confronts the problems of relativism that arises on the subject matter. Now I will attempt to give an account on how all things considered in the first two sections of my paper, we ought to think about universal rights relative to the international legal system. My analysis here will be two-fold. First, I will begin by suggesting that it may be useful to revise our conception of universal human rights so that we may sever its connection with the absolutism vs†¦show more content†¦This is compatible with Buchanan’s view in which he suggests that â€Å"it is misleading to think of our understanding of human rights and the attempt to implement them in a legal system as entirely independent.à ¢â‚¬  (Buchanan, 119). Thus an understanding of universal human rights must be reflective of the legal regime that upholds such rights. The use of human rights by the legal system itself is justified when it plays some role in attaining some end which achieves an objective value. For Buchanan, human rights provide the means for the â€Å"conditions for a good human life† (Buchanan, 128). I agree with Buchanan that the importance of living ‘a good human life’ serves as a worthy end that holds objective value for all human beings. Thus, if human rights correspond to this end then they can be justified within the legal system. However, although we may be quick to accept the first premise that the objective of human life is to live a good human life, we may be less accepting of the second premise that human rights actually provide the means for living a good human life. In other words, we may run into difficulty establishing that the human rights actually recognize and respond to the end established in premise one. Thus, this is where Buchanan’s assertion