Description
Many of the international laws and institutions in the contemporary global order assume a set of universal values. These include, but are not limited to: peace, sovereignty, human rights, the rule of law, democracy, environmental justice, and economic justice. While not accepted by every state or agent in the global order, these values underlie many of the formal agreements and arrangements in the contemporary political order. In recent years, scholars writing from a postcolonial and decolonial perspective have challenged the very notion of universality, and some of this critical attention has been focused on global institutions and laws. These critical perspectives bring out how the existing order was established without a diversity of perspectives and assumes binaries between civilized/uncivilized states. This paper reviews and takes seriously these critical voices, but seeks to find if there is any way to defend the universalism which lies at the heart of global institutions. It will focus on debates around human rights as a focal point of analysis.
