South-North differences on human rights

Tom Zwart, professor of Human Rights, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

The protection of human rights is common to both developed countries and developing countries. However, their understandings sometimes differ from each other.

Developed countries often use an offensive strategy. They claim that there is only one valid human rights approach, that is, their own, which is characterized as being "universal" or "cosmopolitan", and which applies to each and every society in the same way. Consequently, other countries are held accountable on the basis of the legalism and modernity which form the core of the North's approach.

Rather than starting from the international human rights regime, developing countries tend to take their respective domestic situations as their point of departure. They respect their international obligations, but they also believe that they have to be performed in a way which takes the local cultural, social and political contexts into account. Underlying this position is the idea that human rights will be respected and supported only if it is embedded in the country's culture.

Under general international law, states enjoy discretion with regard to the implementation of treaty obligations within a given order. As long as they meet the obligations laid down in the treaty which they are signatories to, they are free to choose the most appropriate way of implementing it at the domestic level. In other words, domestic application is an obligation of result rather than an obligation of means. Therefore, the implementation of treaties, including human rights conventions, is governed by the principle of "domestic primacy".

Laws, as an integral whole, promotes human rights

Liu Huawen, assistant director of Institute of International Law, affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and general secretary of the Center for Human Rights Studies, CASS

China is a large developing country and attaches great importance to economic development. Today, China follows the path of scientific development, which stresses the principle of putting people first. Based on the rule of law and with human rights as its objective, China is making great efforts to realize fair, righteous, coordinated, balanced and sustainable development.

In November 2012, the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China reiterated that the fundamental goal of the rule by law in China is to earnestly respect and protect human rights.

The report points out that the objective of the CPC is to lead the country in building a moderately prosperous society, and the deepening of reform and opening-up include carrying out "the basic strategies for the rule of law in an all-around way to build a law-based government in the main, to constantly improve the judicial credibility, and to earnestly respect and preserve human rights".

In the process of facilitating the development of human rights, attaching importance to the rule of law means mobilizing all legal resources and giving full play to the role of law, which include safeguarding the sanctity of the Constitution, implementing laws both domestic and international, enhancing social legislation and paying attention to law enforcement. Particularly, we should adopt an all-out, open and constructive attitude toward the concept of law and its relationship with social construction, and initiate governance through soft laws. In short, all laws, as an integral whole, promote the cause of human rights.