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30 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 305 (1998-1999)
How to Argue for a Universal Claim

handle is hein.journals/colhr30 and id is 323 raw text is: HOW TO ARGUE FOR A UNIVERSAL CLAIM by Jeremy Waldron* In the controversy about universality versus relativism, there are three strategies to which defenders of universal human rights commonly resort. Two of them involve the use of examples. I. In the first strategy, we try to identify a form of oppression which horrifies us and which we have reason to expect would horrify anyone from any social or cultural background. Torture-particularly in its extreme form-is perhaps the most common example. The example of torture works well for this purpose because, although we are aware that torture remains standard government practice in many societies, we are also aware that it is known and intended to horrify those who hear about it, even in the cultures and societies in which it is common. That is how it is intended by its perpetrators-as a form of terror. It is not hard, therefore, to argue from the standard, predictable abhorrence of torture in every culture and every society to its condemnation as a universal moral evil. Everyone fears torture and every torturer or authorizer of torture expects and hopes to be feared by victims and potential victims in his society. No one is going to accuse opponents of torture of applying their own parochial sentiments to societies in which those sentiments are not widely shared. Moreover, although moral and political arguments which might justify torture in extreme situations are imaginable-i.e., the famous hypothetical of the terrorist who has planted a nuclear device in a large city and refuses to tell us where it is-the reasoning that is used in those examples is familiar in all societies.' And the defects in that reasoning are * Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia University. B.A, Otago University, New Zealand (1974); LL.B., Otago University, New Zealand (1978); D.Phil., Oxford University (1986). 1. See e.g., Alan Gewirth, Are There Any Absolute Rights?, in Theories of Rights 91, 99 (Jeremy Waldron ed., 1984) (considering hypothetical of terrorists threatening to detonate nuclear bomb in large city). See also Jeremy Waldron, The Law (1990) (discussing real-world justifications for torture).

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