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4 Res Publica 3 (1998)

handle is hein.journals/respub4 and id is 1 raw text is: Res Publica Vol.IV no.1 [19981 INTERPRETING RIGHTS AND CULTURE: EXTENDING LAW'S EMPIRE by DAVID S. B ERRY* 1. Introduction Feminist, critical race and critical legal theory have revived and polarised the contest between protection of traditional cultures and enforcement of human rights in the field of international law. Each side of the debate now advances powerful and nuanced arguments, but the increasing tension hampers any efforts to bridge the two perspectives. Importantly, this polarisation obscures arguments that show both culture and human rights to be contingent in nature. Such arguments reveal that traditional cultures are not static and unchanging, and have been and remain subject to constant revision and re-definition; others illustrate how international human rights law changes and evolves as a result of various pressures. Because such arguments offer significant promise, several recent legal scholars have begun the difficult task of re-examining the basic meanings ascribed to terms such as culture and tradition. They have drawn upon anthropology and political theory to show how these concepts are in fact flexible and fluid rather than rigid and static. Another set of scholars has started the same task in the area of international human rights law, using political philosophy to try to draw out the many meanings and potentials of human rights, as well as reveal their flexibility and wide applicability. But few have tried to show how these two concepts, once they have been made more flexible, can be * Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, P.O. Box 64, Bridgetown, Barbados. I am grateful to Elizabeth Kingdom, Edward Berry, Colin Macleod and my anonymous readers for their help and enthusiasm with earlier versions of this article, and owe special thanks to Emilios Christodoulidis for encouraging me to actively apply Dworkin's theory to this area. Responsibility for the contents or views expressed herein lies solely with the author.

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