The Bangkok Declaration Three years After: Reflections on the State of the Asia-West Dialogue on Human Rights

The Bangkok Declaration Three years After: Reflections on the State of the Asia-West Dialogue on Human Rights
Joanne Bauer

March 4, 1996


Joanne Bauer
In March 1993, Asian state representatives from Iran to Mongolia met to finalize the Bangkok Declaration, a statement that would represent the Asian region's stance on human rights at the World Conference on Human Rights to be held that June in Vienna. What surprised many observers, including Asian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), was the bold opposition to universal human rights contained in the Declaration, made on the grounds that human rights as such do not accord with "Asian values." This marked the first of many messages Asian state representatives would send to the West saying that Asia intends to set its own standards for human rights. And intellectuals and officials in the West have responded in kind.
As the Asia-West dialogue on human rights engendered by the Bangkok Declaration approaches its three-year mark, this issue of Dialogue is devoted to an assessment of its progress. It contains contributions from participants in the Carnegie Council's Human Rights Initiative*1* who are concerned with the quality of the debate. What are "Asian values" and how have they played into the debate? Has the West responded appropriately? Should "Asian values" be dismissed as a cloak for authoritarian leaders to hang on to a monopoly of power? Or is there something more to the concept that the West has missed?

In the first article Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor at Harvard University, argues that the Western observer should not eschew the importance of the fact that Asians are taking a new interest in their own traditions and intellectual heritage. What is needed is a deeper understanding of Asian cultures, he says, bearing in mind that freedom and democracy were expounded by some of Asia's ancient philosophers as well as modern leaders.

To Kevin Y. L. Tan, senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore and author of the second article, Western scholars and politicians seem to be "panicked" by the Asian challenge to human rights because "Asians seem to be speaking from a position of strength." The debate in his view—both the Asian offensive and the West's reaction—is shaped almost entirely by the rise in economic power of Asia and not by the merits of the conceptual arguments that Western intellectuals are trying so hard to make.

In the final article, Joseph Chan, associate professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, begins by echoing Kevin Tan that Asians have been unable to provide "vigorous arguments for their claim to distinctiveness." But, he goes on to say, "the debate is not over." The problem with the West's response to the debate, according to Chan, is that it has placed too much emphasis on refuting Asian claims against universal human rights, and has "tended to downplay the importance of substantiating international human rights law" for the Asian context. Chan's prescription? As a basis for human rights, Asia needs to develop a coherent political morality appropriate to Asia, involving moral justifications for rights and responsibilities.

"This dispute over principles and practice is really about the lives of Asians," says Sen. "The search for a political morality is ultimately a soul-searching exercise for Asians themselves," says Chan. But perhaps, as Tan suggests in his final statement, the West is doing some searching itself.

*1* The Centerpiece of the Initiative is a multiyear research and dialogue project on Human Rights in East and Southeast Asia, "The Growth of East Asia and Its impact on Human Rights."


Copyright © 2007 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
The Bangkok Declaration Three years After: Reflections on the State of the Asia-West Dialogue on Human Rights

FINAL DECLARATION OF THE REGIONAL MEETING FOR ASIA OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

FINAL DECLARATION OF THE REGIONAL MEETING FOR ASIA OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS



The Ministers and representatives of Asian States, meeting at Bangkok from 29 March to 2 April 1993, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 46/116 of 17 December 1991 in the context of preparations for the World Conference on Human rights,


Adopt this Declaration, to be known as "The Bangkok Declaration", which contains the aspirations and commitments of the Asian region:



BANGKOK DECLARATION



Emphasizing the significance of the World Conference on Human Rights, which provides an invaluable opportunity to review all aspects of human rights and ensure a just and balanced approach thereto,



Recognizing the contribution that can be made to the World Conference by Asian countries with their diverse and rich cultures and traditions,



Welcoming the increased attention being paid to human rights in the international community,



Reaffirming their commitment to principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights,



Recalling that in the Charter of the United Nations the question of universal observance and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms has been rightly placed within the context of international cooperation,



Noting the progress made in the codification of human rights instruments, and in the establishment of international human rights mechanisms, while expressing concern that these mechanisms relate mainly to one category of rights,



Emphasizing that ratification of international human rights instruments, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, by all States should be further encouraged,



Reaffirming the principles of respect for national sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference in the internal affairs of States,



Stressing the universality, objectivity and non-selectivity of all human rights and the need to avoid the application of double standards in the implementation of human rights and its politicization,



Recognizing that the promotion of human rights should be encouraged by cooperation and consensus, and not through confrontation and the imposition of incompatible values,



Reiterating the interdependence and indivisibility of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, and the inherent interrelationship between development, democracy, universal enjoyment of all human rights, and social justice, which must be addressed in an integrated and balanced manner,



Recalling that the Declaration on the Right to Development has recognized the right to development as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights,



Emphasizing that endeavours to move towards the creation of uniform international human rights norms must go hand in hand with endeavours to work towards a just and fair world economic order,



Convinced that economic and social progress facilitates the growing trend towards democracy and the promotion and protection of human rights,



Stressing the importance of education and training in human rights at the national, regional and international levels and the need for international cooperation aimed at overcoming the lack of public awareness of human rights,



1. Reaffirm their commitment to the principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights as well as the full realization of all human rights throughout the world;



2. Underline the essential need to create favourable conditions for effective enjoyment of human rights at both the national and international levels;



3. Stress the urgent need to democratize the United Nations system, eliminate selectivity and improve procedures and mechanisms in order to strengthen international cooperation, based on principles of equality and mutual respect, and ensure a positive, balanced and non-confrontational approach in addressing and realizing all aspects of human rights;



4. Discourage any attempt to use human rights as a conditionality for extending development assistance;



5. Emphasize the principles of respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as non-interference in the internal affairs of States, and the non-use of human rights as an instrument of political pressure;



6. Reiterate that all countries, large and small, have the right to determine their political systems, control and freely utilize their resources, and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development;



7. Stress the universality, objectivity and non-selectivity of all human rights and the need to avoid the application of double standards in the implementation of human rights and its politicization, and that no violation of human rights can be justified;



8. Recognize that while human rights are universal in nature, they must be considered in the context of a dynamic and evolving process of international norm-setting, bearing in mind the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds;



9. Recognize further that States have the primary responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights through appropriate infrastructure and mechanisms, and also recognize that remedies must be sought and provided primarily through such mechanisms and procedures;



10. Reaffirm the interdependence and indivisibility of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, and the need to give equal emphasis to all categories of human rights;



11. Emphasize the importance of guaranteeing the human rights and fundamental freedoms of vulnerable groups such as ethnic, national, racial, religious and linguistic minorities, migrant workers, disabled persons, indigenous peoples, refugees and displaced persons;



12. Reiterate that self-determination is a principle of international law and a universal right recognized by the United Nations for peoples under alien or colonial domination and foreign occupation, by virtue of which they can freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and that its denial constitutes a grave violation of human rights;



13. Stress that the right to self-determination is applicable to peoples under alien or colonial domination and foreign occupation, and should not be used to undermine the territorial integrity, national sovereignty and political independence of States;



14. Express concern over all forms of violation of human rights, including manifestations of racial discrimination, racism, apartheid, colonialism, foreign aggression and occupation, and the establishment of illegal settlements in occupied territories, as well as the recent resurgence of neo-nazism, xenophobia and ethnic cleansing;



15. Underline the need for taking effective international measures in order to guarantee and monitor the implementation of human rights standards and effective and legal protection of people under foreign occupation;



16. Strongly affirm their support for the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people to restore their national and inalienable rights to self-determination and independence, and demand an immediate end to the grave violations of human rights in the Palestinian, Syrian Golan and other occupied Arab territories including Jerusalem;



17. Reaffirm the right to development, as established in the Declaration on the Right to Development, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights, which must be realized through international cooperation, respect for fundamental human rights, the establishment of a monitoring mechanism and the creation of essential international conditions for the realization of such right;



18. Recognize that the main obstacles to the realization of the right to development lie at the international macroeconomic level, as reflected in the widening gap between the North and the South, the rich and the poor;



19. Affirm that poverty is one of the major obstacles hindering the full enjoyment of human rights;



20. Affirm also the need to develop the right of humankind regarding a clean, safe and healthy environment;



21. Note that terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, as distinguished from the legitimate struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation, has emerged as one of the most dangerous threats to the enjoyment of human rights and democracy, threatening the territorial integrity and security of States and destabilizing legitimately constituted governments, and that it must be unequivocally condemned by the international community;



22. Reaffirm their strong commitment to the promotion and protection of the rights of women through the guarantee of equal participation in the political, social, economic and cultural concerns of society, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination and of gender-based violence against women;



23. Recognize the rights of the child to enjoy special protection and to be afforded the opportunities and facilities to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity;



24. Welcome the important role played by national institutions in the genuine and constructive promotion of human rights, and believe that the conceptualization and eventual establishment of such institutions are best left for the States to decide;



25. Acknowledge the importance of cooperation and dialogue between governments and non-governmental organizations on the basis of shared values as well as mutual respect and understanding in the promotion of human rights, and encourage the non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council to contribute positively to this process in accordance with Council resolution 1296 (XLIV);



26. Reiterate the need to explore the possibilities of establishing regional arrangements for the promotion and protection of human rights in Asia;



27. Reiterate further the need to explore ways to generate international cooperation and financial support for education and training in the field of human rights at the national level and for the establishment of national infrastructures to promote and protect human rights if requested by States;



28. Emphasize the necessity to rationalize the United Nations human rights mechanism in order to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency and the need to ensure avoidance of the duplication of work that exists between the treaty bodies, the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and the Commission on Human Rights, as well as the need to avoid the multiplicity of parallel mechanisms;



29. Stress the importance of strengthening the United Nations Centre for Human Rights with the necessary resources to enable it to provide a wide range of advisory services and technical assistance programmes in the promotion of human rights to requesting States in a timely and effective manner, as well as to enable it to finance adequately other activities in the field of human rights authorized by competent bodies;



30. Call for increased representation of the developing countries in the Centre for Human Rights.

FINAL DECLARATION OF THE REGIONAL MEETING FOR ASIA OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

The Task for Asians: To Discover their Own Political Morality for Human Rights

The Task for Asians: To Discover their Own Political Morality for Human Rights
Joseph Chan

March 4, 1996

Insofar as the human rights debate between Asia and the West has centered upon the validity of the universal claim of human rights, the only fair assessment so far is that the burden of proof remains with the proponents of cultural relativism. Not only have representatives of Asian states, such as Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Indonesia, failed to provide vigorous arguments for their claim to distinctiveness, but their positions have been neither clear nor consistent. This is evident in their constant oscillation between a stated acceptance of universal human rights and an emphasis on the legitimacy of a different understanding and practice of human rights arising from different historical traditions. Likewise, they have oscillated between a commitment to equal importance of political and economic rights and selective priority given to economic development at the expense of political and civil rights. Even if the Asian states opt for a firm relativistic posture on human rights, there is strong normative and empirical evidence that makes such a position untenable. However, the debate is not over, for a broader and more fruitful dialogue needs to take place. This next stage of the debate must focus not on the validity of human rights but on a broader range of substantive issues of political morality.
Liberal critics of an "Asian concept of human rights" tend to downplay the importance of substantiating and determining the scope of international human rights law. Instead, they have devoted their efforts to refuting Asian states claims against universal human rights. It would be a mistake to believe that this is a satisfactory means of engaging Asians in a fruitful dialogue. Even if Asians accept human rights as stated in the Universal Declaration and subsequent covenants at face value, they still face the tremendous task of interpreting these rights for the local context. Some liberals tend to think that cases that do not accord fully with their notion of human rights are outliers, and thus do not call for a significant alteration to their approach to human rights. This is far from the truth. A systematic substantiation of human rights involves nothing less than the development of a coherent political morality, which involves moral justifications for rights and responsibilities.

The promotion of human rights norms in Asia is at its core a search for a coherent political morality suitable to the many different societies within the Pacific Rim. This is an important task for Asians. The task should not be understood as a contest between Asians and Westerners. The search for a political morality is ultimately a soul-searching exercise for Asians themselves: to clarify their values and aspirations and to develop social, political, and philosophical norms that best capture them. Inevitably these values and aspirations will draw from both Western and Asian civilizations. Asians, specifically the Japanese and the so-called Four Little Dragons (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong), have adapted well to modernization and have learned much from Western cultures. As Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean senior official, writes, "If the Pacific has emerged as the most dynamic region of the world, it is because it has drawn on the best practices and values from many rich civilizations, Asian and Western. If this fusion continues to work, there could be explosive creativity on a scale never before seen."*2*

Political moralities for East Asians must be liberal at a minimum, in the sense that the state must enforce basic individual rights. The differences between political moralities in East Asia and those in the West are thus differences between members of the same family. Yet the differences may not be trivial. Liberal political moralities for East Asians may legitimately diverge in several important respects from those in the West, especially the United States. While tere is no such thing as a single, unified American political morality, it is hard to deny that there is an influential political vision in both the American academic community and the general public. This vision, which may be called exclusionary liberalism, can be explained as follows.

The state's primary duty is to enforce basic individual rights. In determining the scope of rights and enforcing them, there are limits on the state. Specifically, the state may restrict individual rights only on the grounds of preventing harm and offense to others. The state must remain neutral among competing conceptions of the good life (the neutrality or anti-perfectionism principle); it must not restrict an individual's liberty for his or her own good (the anti-paternalism principle); and it must not enforce society's morals by means of the law (the anti-moralism principle). American political morality thus excludes perfectionism, paternalism, and moralism as grounds for state intervention. In other words, it excludes the pursuit of the good life from the business of the state—what I call "exclusionary liberalism."

I believe that exclusionary liberalism is defective on philosophical grounds and not suitable for East Asians on cultural grounds. At the cultural level, the spirit of exclusionary liberalism is entirely foreign to the Confucian-based traditions in East Asia. In China, from ancient to modern times, the state has always performed an educative as well as protective function. The most fundamental element in Confucian political thought is that the primary task of the state is to help citizens develop virtues and achieve the good life. It is the duty of the state in East Asia to carry out this task with due concern to the ethical and cultural life of society and within the broad constraints of basic individual rights. Undoubtedly, there are many illiberal elements in Confucian doctrines, and many actual practices of the Chinese state do not recognize and respect individual basic liberties. There is a strong reason for East Asians to abandon these illiberal elements on the basis that they violate universal human rights. Yet to go to the extreme of embracing exclusionary liberalism would be a serious mistake.

The rationale for an inclusive view of the tasks of the state is at the same time cultural, sociological, and philosophical. We see in East Asian cultures, in particular Confucian-based ones, a strong emphasis on intimate family relationships and respect for elders, for example. From the sociological point of view, the pursuit of virtues and the good life is not an entirely personal matter but requires conditions that can only be provided by collective effort. Social institutions, culture, and traditions are collective constructs that provide the conditions for people to live the good life. This is a truism with which no liberal would disagree.

What exclusionary liberals seem to insist upon is that civil society, being free from the coercive machinery of the state, is voluntary in character and strong enough to maintain the conditions for the pursuit of a worthy life. They hold that collective groups in civil society can flourish on their own as in a free market. There is no evidence however, that even under conditions of freedom, people will choose a sound option that may benefit the community at large. Since the most virtuous choices in life are not naturally selected, and since the market or voluntary associations cannot provide adequate insurance of the good life, there is a need for the state to act as arbiter in ensuring a political balance among competing factions within society. Valuable cultural elements that may otherwise be driven out by a highly commercialized market and materialistic culture, need the support and subsidies from the state in order to survive. For example, in Taiwan the government has actively sponsored research and social activities that promote Confucian thought and way of life. Furthermore, the notion of traditional liberals that what incapacitates civil society is the state and that the former should thus be protected from the latter, is flawed. The reality is that the enemy of civil societ can emerge from within: domination, coercion, manipulation, and destruction of groups and valuable ways of life can occur in civil society even if the state is kept outside.

Both the state and civil society face shortcomings and need each other to help resolve them. Civil society needs the state to prevent itself from self-destruction, and the state in turn requires a strong civil society to check its enormous power. And as individuals are susceptible to the sometimes negative influence of civil society and the state, both need to be checked by public scrutiny. The state and civil society thus require each other for the attainment of perfectionist goals. The need for a perfectionist state seems strong for East Asians, particularly today as the forces of marketization and commercialization have eroded the traditional ethos of various East Asian societies. While some effects of modernization may be liberating for individuals, there are legitimate fears that certain valuable personal and familial ethics may be lost in the process.

*1* This is an excerpt of a paper presented at a confernce on "The Contest for 'Asia'" organized by the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, amnd the Department of politics and public Administration, university of Hong Kong, December 4-5, 1995, Hong Kong.
*2* Kishore Mahbubani, "The Pacific Way," Foreign Affairs, 74 (jan/Feb 1995): 107.



Copyright © 2007 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

The Task for Asians: To Discover their Own Political Morality for Human Rights

What Asians Think About the West's Response to the Human Rights Debate

What Asians Think About the West's Response to the Human Rights Debate
Kevin Y. L. Tan

March 4, 1996

The recent debate on "Asian values" and human rights has developed into a cottage industry. At every turn politicians, academics, and opportunists of all ilks are jumping on the bandwagon giving their version of what human rights are all about and whether Asia should be unique in its approach to human rights issues and its quest for democracy and modernity. Unfortunately, in issues of this kind, the debate attracts all sorts of people, each with their own specific agendas, and neither "Asian values" proponents nor opponents speak with one voice. As a result, the real issues become clouded in blistering rhetoric, name calling, and finger pointing.
What is perhaps most surprising is how quickly the debate has polarized the camps, reviving the age-old divide between East and West. Taking a step back, however, is it really just cultural differences that separate the two camps? I think the real interests underpinning the debate have nothing at all to do with questions of culture, or indeed, even human rights. Rather, they are related to Asian economic success and confidence and Asia's continuing reaction to colonialism.

I doubt very much if this debate would have even started were late twentieth-century Asia nothing but a sea of poverty, degradation, and squalor. But it is not. Asia is booming, and economists and analysts alike are calling the next century the "Pacific Century," an obvious reference to the tremendous growth in the Asia-Pacific region. The Asian "economic miracle" has been linked to so-called Confucian and Asian values by no less venerable an institution than the World Bank. The linkage between economic growth and cultural values has given Asian leaders and intellectuals a new-found confidence in two ways. First, Asian voices, particularly those emanating from countries like Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, are standing up to their detractors with a confidence buoyed by their countries double-digit growth. Second, economic success cloaks many of these Asian governments in what Carl Freiderich calls "performance legitimacy." Countries in Asia are modernizing and growing at an unprecedented pace, and Asian leaders and their people are justifiably proud of their achievements.

In the face of such overwhelming success, new-found national pride pits Asian countries against the "decadent West," which constantly preaches to Asian nations to conform to what it believes to be universally established standards of human rights practice. Constant pressure to observe human rights obligations, often applied with threats of economic sanctions, is regarded by many as a slap in the Asian face and, more importantly, an attempt by the West to hold the East ransom. The vociferous debate generated over President Bill Clinton's decision to renew China's most favored nation (MFN) status in 1993 is a case in point. Beyond a cursory flat denial of human rights violations, Asians must justify their actions, and one powerful way to do this is by claiming historical, cultural, and religious exception. At the same time, some Asian states push the cultural line to support their soft authoritarian form of governments, which have, together with their social and economic agendas, also come under attack from Western leaders and intellectuals. In this sense, Asian states are really fighting for the right to be modern, not to forge their own version of human rights.

Most Asian scholars are very keen on the "Asian values" debate because it is an opportunity to take on the West in an intellectual exchange where the West does not have a clear and distinct advantage. One noted Japanese academic at the Hakone workshop*1* told me he was tired of the West setting the rules and that it's time to give them "a taste of their own medicine" (telling others how to run their own lives) even though he did not agree with the "Asian viewpoint." He was als proud of the fact that an Asian like Lee Kuan Yew could stand up to the West and "give it to them."

The positions the West is taking in the debate are no different from those the West has always stood by. Media coverage in recent years, however, has impassioned the debate and has thus highlighted and, in some respects, shaped the divergence of interests between East and West. The stakes in the debate have come to be planted along civilizatioinal lines that cut deep into the national and hemispheric pride of both parties. When the debate is couched in these terms, then all the other baggage is imported along with it. So I don t believe the West is overreacting in its response to the debate. I do, however, detect a sense of panic among many Western scholars and politicians—a result of the fact that many Asians appear to be speaking from a position of strength; strength drawn not from the merits of intellectual arguments but from economic success.

Can the Western response be improved? It's difficult to say. The West is primarily concerned with the merits of the conceptual arguments. I think Jack Donnelly's arguments are rigorous in this regard. While the West is concerned with whether it is at all possible to take a relativist approach to human rights issues, Asia is more concerned with power politics. The East's reaction to this must, I think, be viewed in its proper context. The problem as Asians see it is this: How can the West—especially America —preach democracy and human rights as fundamental values when the West can t even get its own house in order? Asia, on the other hand, is less the hypocrite because it takes a culturally relativist approach to the situation and does not pretend to be the champion of human rights. Such is the view of many in Asia.

It is interesting to note that the human rights debate has without a doubt attracted more scholars, intellectuals, and politicians in the West than in Asia. There are two possible reasons for this. Western liberalism and its ideals are under threat, and this siege on the Western citadel has drawn more and more Western leaders and intellectuals into the fray, compelled to stage a spirited defense against Asia's confident and well-considered alternative worldview. But, it could also be true that Asian intellectuals are just having too good a time enjoying their newly acquired wealth to worry so much about such conceptual debates.

*1* This is a reference to the first workshop of the Human Rights Initiative, "Changing Conceptions of Human Rights in a Growing East Asia," held in Hakone, Japan, June 23-26, 1996.


Copyright © 2007 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

What Asians Think About the West's Response to the Human Rights Debate

Thinking About Human Rights and Asian Values

Thinking About Human Rights and Asian Values
Amartya Sen

March 4, 1996


Amartya Sen
While it might not be clear what "Asian values" are, they seem to have gained a place in the standard analysis of contemporary events. In a provocative essay, entitled "Japan's Nice New Nationalism," published in 1995, the Economist poses a question in a rather stark form—a query that has often been stated, albeit less clearly: "Is the combination of nationalist confidence and a growing economic interest in Asia likely to pose a threat?"*2* The threat referred to relates to the concerns of the Western countries. The reference here is not only to—not even primarily to—Japan's dominance in trade and world markets, but to Japan's possible role in tolerating and supporting some policies and practices in Asia that may be quite unacceptable in the West. The Economist identifies "human rights and press freedoms" as "the most frequent battlegrounds."
This way of seeing the "clash of cultures" is increasingly prevalent now. But to see the conflict over human rights as a battle between Western liberalism on one side and Asian reluctance on the other is to cast the debate in a form that distracts attention from the central issues, which concern Asia itself. In the battle over the role of human rights and such matters as press freedom (a battle that is certainly forceful in contemporary Asia), the primary parties are Asians of different interests and convictions, even if occasionally a visiting American might get caned in an Asian country. This is not to deny that America or Europe has legitimate reasons to worry about the outcome of this and related contentions about ideas and politics in Asia (I have nothing against the Economist posing this "Western" question—one of some interest to its readers), but this dispute over principles and practice is really about the lives of Asians—their beliefs and traditions, their rules and regulations, their achievements and failures, and ultimately their lives and freedoms. The Western concern—legitimate on its own—may even contribute to misspecifying the central features of the debate.

There is a further reason for removing this debate from the perspective of Western anxiety about Asian practice. That often-invoked perspective gives the immediate impression that the primacy of human rights is a fundamental and ancient feature of Western culture, and one not to be found in Asia. It is, as it were, a contrast between the authoritarianism allegedly implicit in, say, Confucianism vis-à-vis the respect for individual liberty allegedly deeply rooted in Western culture. There are good historical reasons to doubt each of the two claims implicit in the contrast. As to when the notion of individual liberty first became explicit in the West, Isaiah Berlin has noted: "I have found no convincing evidence of any clear formulation of it in the ancient world."*3* And insofar as we do find arguments championing freedoms in some generic sense in ancient Greek treatises (as we clearly do, for example, in Aristotle's Politics and also in Nicomachean Ethics), it is not hard to discover comparable championing of generically described freedoms and tolerance in the writings of many Asian theorists, such as Ashoka, whose inscriptions from the third century b.c. emphasize tolerance and liberty as central values of a good society. Indeed, the rhetoric of freedom is abundantly invoked in many of the Asian literatures. Buddha even explains nirvana in the language of "freedom," to wit, the freedom from the miseries of life. If there is a real gap today in the acceptance of freedom and liberty in the West vis-à-vis those in Asia, the roots of a hard division lie much closer to our times.

Nor is it helpful to see the contrast in terms of the practical traditions of "Oriental despotism" that had once so fascinated European scholars in the heyday of the historial emergence of democratic commitments of the West. If the despots of the Orient were more despotic than those in the West (it is not obvious that this was the case), the political limits of today's Asia are not clearly bound by those traditions—not any more than the political possibilities in Europe are confined by the heritage of the Spanish Inquisition or the history of Nazi genocide.

Many Western commentators find it deeply unacceptable that some people who argue against human rights in Asia try to gain inspiration from specific interpretations of "Asian values." This is an understandable concern, but that search for inspiration is a close cousin of the tendency in the West to see ideas of democracy and liberty specifically in terms of "Western" traditions. Even the language used in recommending to Asia what is called "Western democracy" imposes a geographical mode of divisiveness that springs not only from Asian intransigence but also from Western "priority complex." If the grabbing of "Asian values" by the champions of authoritarianism has to be effectively and fairly questioned, what is needed is not the claim—often implicit—of the superiority of what are taken as Western values, but a broader historical study of Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Arabic, and other Asian literatures (in relation to corresponding writings in the Western classics). And nearer our times, acknowledgment would have to be made to the contributions of national leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi or Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who were, already a hundred years ago, cogently vocal in defense of the widest forms of democracy and political and civil rights.

I am not, of course, disputing that at a truly deep level, cultural comparisons based on real history could be extremely interesting in diagnosing the balance of focal concerns in different regional traditions in the world and in dealing with the principles and reasonings that have a bearing on the contemporary formulations of human rights. But neither the rapid invoking of "Asian values" in defense of suppressing human rights, nor the expression of Western anxiety and consternation about "Asian" ways, helps to advance critical scrutiny of the role of human rights and their consequences in Asian societies. The subject has a contingently regional dimension, but it is not a foundationally regional issue.

*1* This is an excerpt of a paper entitled "Human Rights and Economic Achievements," presented at the Hakone Workshop of the Human Rights Initiative, June 23-26, 1995.
*2* "Japan's Nice New Nationalism," Economist, January 14, 1995, p. 13.
*3* Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1969), p. xl. Even as far as the idea of democracy itself is concerned,as Benjamin Schwartz notes, "in China, the model of the natural and sacred hierarchy of the patrilear family may have lenbt its own coloration to the concepts of hierarchy and authority, but we must again remember that even in the history of the West, with its memories of Athenian democracy, the notion that democracy cannot be implemented in large territorial states requiring highly centralized power remained accepted wisdom as late as Montesquieu and Rousseau." ( The World of Thought in Ancient China [Cambridge: Harvard university Press, 1985], 69).



Copyright © 2007 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

Thinking About Human Rights and Asian Values

The Bangkok Declaration Three years After: Reflections on the State of the Asia-West Dialogue on Human Rights

The Bangkok Declaration Three years After: Reflections on the State of the Asia-West Dialogue on Human Rights Joanne Bauer

March 4, 1996

Joanne BauerIn March 1993, Asian state representatives from Iran to Mongolia met to finalize the Bangkok Declaration, a statement that would represent the Asian region's stance on human rights at the World Conference on Human Rights to be held that June in Vienna. What surprised many observers, including Asian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), was the bold opposition to universal human rights contained in the Declaration, made on the grounds that human rights as such do not accord with "Asian values." This marked the first of many messages Asian state representatives would send to the West saying that Asia intends to set its own standards for human rights. And intellectuals and officials in the West have responded in kind.
As the Asia-West dialogue on human rights engendered by the Bangkok Declaration approaches its three-year mark, this issue of Dialogue is devoted to an assessment of its progress. It contains contributions from participants in the Carnegie Council's Human Rights Initiative*1* who are concerned with the quality of the debate. What are "Asian values" and how have they played into the debate? Has the West responded appropriately? Should "Asian values" be dismissed as a cloak for authoritarian leaders to hang on to a monopoly of power? Or is there something more to the concept that the West has missed?
In the first article Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor at Harvard University, argues that the Western observer should not eschew the importance of the fact that Asians are taking a new interest in their own traditions and intellectual heritage. What is needed is a deeper understanding of Asian cultures, he says, bearing in mind that freedom and democracy were expounded by some of Asia's ancient philosophers as well as modern leaders.
To Kevin Y. L. Tan, senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore and author of the second article, Western scholars and politicians seem to be "panicked" by the Asian challenge to human rights because "Asians seem to be speaking from a position of strength." The debate in his view—both the Asian offensive and the West's reaction—is shaped almost entirely by the rise in economic power of Asia and not by the merits of the conceptual arguments that Western intellectuals are trying so hard to make.
In the final article, Joseph Chan, associate professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, begins by echoing Kevin Tan that Asians have been unable to provide "vigorous arguments for their claim to distinctiveness." But, he goes on to say, "the debate is not over." The problem with the West's response to the debate, according to Chan, is that it has placed too much emphasis on refuting Asian claims against universal human rights, and has "tended to downplay the importance of substantiating international human rights law" for the Asian context. Chan's prescription? As a basis for human rights, Asia needs to develop a coherent political morality appropriate to Asia, involving moral justifications for rights and responsibilities.
"This dispute over principles and practice is really about the lives of Asians," says Sen. "The search for a political morality is ultimately a soul-searching exercise for Asians themselves," says Chan. But perhaps, as Tan suggests in his final statement, the West is doing some searching itself.
*1* The Centerpiece of the Initiative is a multiyear research and dialogue project on Human Rights in East and Southeast Asia, "The Growth of East Asia and Its impact on Human Rights."

Copyright © 2007 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
The Bangkok Declaration Three years After: Reflections on the State of the Asia-West Dialogue on Human Rights