Influence of Unified Standard of Human Rights on China

The human right has been a popular topic at present in China, especially when the great powers try to pursue the hegemonies and power politics after the issuing of Universal Declaration of Human Rights of UN. In view of the conflict on human rights between the developed countries and developing countries, it is needed to clear the connotation and characteristics of human right standards, and explores whether there is a universal and common standard of human rights without borders based on the analysis of different standards of human rights.

During the process of human rights consciousness awakening and human rights internationalization, the human rights and its standard have become the hot issue with more controversy and divergence in the contemporary world and China. Some western countries persist in imposing its own human rights standards upon other countries through certain ways, which cannot be accepted by most countries. Therefore, there is no consensus as to whether there is a common human rights standard. If any, why people have put forward various kinds of standards, and if not, why more than seventy international conventions, agreements, protocols and regional conventions on human rights had been passed after the preparation of United Nations Charter. So it is undoubtedly necessary to explore whether there is a universal and common standard of human rights without borders.

1. Human rights and its standard

Before explaining the standard of human rights, it is necessary to definite the meaning of human rights. What is human right? Different scholars have different definition of the human rights. Most western scholars discuss the human rights from the perspective of universal ethics. For example, Louis Henking, the American scholar, said: "the so-called human rights, according to the contemporary common opinion, refer to the moral and political demands for everyone proposed by the society and government" (Ron 219). Milne, the British scholar, also understood the human rights on the basis of the universal ethics from the perspective of his human right philosophy. He thought that the human right was "the minimum moral standard. The concept of human rights can be reasonably demonstrated, which is not an ideal standard, but a minimum standard; more precisely, it is such a concept: some rights are the universal minimum moral standards that should be respected" (240). On the contrary, Jack Donnelly, the American scholar, argued that human right is "the highest moral request, and the human right is a special kind of right, and the reason why a person has rights is just that he is a man. Therefore, they are the highest level of moral request" (245) Therefore, most western scholars think that the human right is a kind of moral right, and their understanding of the human right is also based on this.

In terms of the definition of human rights in China, scholars explain their understanding of the concept of human rights according to the different focus of argument. Iris Chang et al. thought that "human rights refer to the rights that are enjoyed or should be enjoyed by people, in other words, the human rights refer to the basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by people according to their nature." Yoshida argued that "the human right refers to the right enjoyed by people in social relations as a person or group from certain value and moral idea." He further explained the thought that "the human right does not refer to all the civic rights since it was invented, or when it is used in modern time, but just refer to those basic and common rights." Based on these definitions, it is not hard to see that most Chinese scholars believe that the human right is one of the basic rights, such as the basic political right, legal right and individual right (Vally 13).

Human rights contain a series of contents, such as the source of human rights, the content of human rights, the measurement standard of human rights, the decider of the standard, as well as the service object of human rights, etc. It is necessary to understand the concept of human right standards first, because with the development of the human rights theory and practice in modern society, there is sharp conflict in human right consciousness between western developed countries and developing countries. Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contain a series of international human rights concept, it is just theory after all. There are many differences among countries in the practice of human rights, and developed countries and developing countries simply go on their own ways. The concept of human right standards is also different. Marxism thought that the so-called human right standards, in essence, were the scales, standards and specifications to measure the phenomenon and situation of human rights, as well as the right relation among people. Marxist’s concept of human right standard is based on the theory of historical materialism. And the International Human Rights Law argues that the human right standards "refer to the basis, principle and scale to measure the policy, legislation, situation and practice of human rights of each country." The international concept of human right standards is based on the "natural rights". There are certain differences in the essence of the human right standard concept for both.

2. Characteristics of the human right standards

After clearing the definition of human right standards, we must understand the characteristics of the human right standards, and human right standard has the following characteristics according to the attribute of human rights.

(1) Objectivity

The human right standard is actually a kind of evaluation criterion for the right relation among people. Certain human right standard reflects the material interest relation and ideological interest relation of certain social relations. The social material interest relation is continuously developing with the promotion of social productivity and the development of society. So the human right standard has the objectivity.

(2) Class nature

According to the national view of Marxism, all countries (including all modern countries) are the countries of ruling class. Countries have the class nature, and all countries’ claims (including the understanding of human rights and legal practice) are claims of the ruling class in the dominant position in national life ultimately. And any claim of the ruling class always focuses on establishing and consolidating its dominant position as the basic or fundamental purpose. Human right standard, as the thought superstructure, reflects the social economic foundation. Human right standard reflects the ideology of the ruling class, and the countries’ claims are also claims of the ruling class in dominant position in national life, so the human right standard has class

(3) Relativity

Human right standard also has relativity. The practice and realization of human rights are restricted by particular historical conditions. The evaluation standard of judging a country's human right practice and realization should not be beyond the country's specific historical conditions. Furthermore, each sovereign state is entitled to determine the development pattern and protection mode of human rights in accordance with the principle of universality of human rights according to their national conditions and social situations, thus determining the evaluation criterion for human rights standards that suits its national conditions.

3. The common standard of human rights

Since the western countries promoted their ideas of human right to the world, the human right issues have become hot in international debate, because there are large differences in the practice of human rights among the countries with different political and economic background, but is there any universal and common standard of human rights without borders, which is a question with large difference and disagreement without a unified understanding so far.

(1) Different understanding of the "common standard of human rights"

Is there any universal and common standard of human rights without borders in today's world? Different scholars have different understanding; some people think that there is no completely common standard of human rights in the contemporary era, while some think that there is a common standard of human rights.

People think that there is no widely-used and completely unified standard of the human rights, "as long as there are different social systems and ideologies, it is impossible to have the totally same human right standard", but they also think that there is standard of the human rights existed relatively and it should be sought from the International Law, in other words, there is no widely-used and completely unified standard of the human rights recognized by each countries." Yoshida thought that the key to the question whether there was a common standard of the human rights was how the countries understood and mastered the common standard; “the common standard of human rights for different classes and different countries is on the different, and even the opposite basis, so the 'common' here also contains the difference, contradiction and opposite."

On the contrary, Iris Chang et al. think that the world had a common standard of human rights, and "admitting and realizing the common standard of human rights are necessary to fight back the western countries’ attack in human rights. Only by admitting the standard made by the international community, namely the common standard, can we have a unified, objective and fair tool to measure the human rights situation in each country." This is the common standard of human rights from the perspective of fighting back the western political system and value idea aggression.