In the West many speakers assert that human rights apply universally. In setting standards there is usually in such speeches an intense focus on the individual and what is perceived to be a collection of rights the individual may claim against the State. Not unsurprisingly the assertion is challenged by cultures that philosophically perceive society as much more than an agglomeration of individuals entitled to rights. In cultures and societies where rights are not measured in opposition to the State but rather where the State proritises societal benefits over individual rights, Western notions of human rights may appear wrongly based.

At its crudest the debate can become an argument that says the UN promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and that human rights derive from the simple point that we are all human and therefore human rights are universal. On the contrary side it is said that far from universal, human rights are merely an instrument of Western political interventionism and attempt the imposition of Western values on societies that are culturally, economically and politically very different from those of the West.

This might seem to be the type of debate better left to philosophers and lawyers were it not that the human rights agenda has become part of the framework of international politics. British prime ministers for example are generally expected by the UK media to raise human rights issues more or less whenever they travel outside the West. Part of the justification for troops remaining in Afghanistan has been said to be improving the human rights of women there. Human rights challenges in international politics are however the subject of much inconsistency. For example I am unaware of European ministers challenging the US on death penalty - right to life – issues, or US ministers challenging European governments on limited rights, by US standards, of freedom of speech. And yet these societies have different concepts of right to life and freedom of expression in their laws. What are described as fundamental universal rights might be expected to be more visible, more specific, more fundamentally the same.

As a minister in two governments in the UK I was involved in many cases in which the State was challenged as acting either in individual decisions or in parts of the justice system, in a manner whereby human rights were said to have been infringed. In nearly all of those cases the issue was one of balancing a competition between the rights of the individual and the interest of the State in promoting benefits to the greater good of society. The calculation of where the balance lies between the rights of the individual and the interests of the State - which may even in Western systems at times result in the dilution or even denial of the right - suggests the result may vary very substantially depending how one State assesses societal good compared with another. Varying assessments by different states are certainly not unknown. Such variance provides a challenge to the notion that human rights are somehow both absolute and universal. If the balance is set at different points by different states, even where they assert the same human right, it is plain human rights if not universal, are certainly not uniform.

In conversation with a UK judge discussing terrorist cases, the judge told me that if some terrorist is set free by the court because of a human rights plea but then when freed, succeeds in killing some people , that is the price of maintaining human rights. I had two questions for him - is there any limit to the number of people that may be killed? ( Certain terrorists have made it clear they wish to kill as many citizens as possible - hundreds of thousands if possible.) And what of the right to life of the innocent citizens? Why are their rights somehow less significant? I have yet to receive an answer. Deciding the balance reflects the values of the society in which the decision requires to be made.

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