JOURNAL OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW (2014) Volume 5, Issue 1 Page | 59 UNIVERSALISM, RELATIVISM AND THE CONCEPT OF LAW Leon Calleja * Abstract As a grounding principle of international human rights law, universalism is the position that all humans are entitled to equal human dignity. Though widely accepted, it comes under attack from two angles, each exposing the difficulties the principle faces in practice. First, the cultural relativist argues that since any conception of human rights is contingent on one’s society or culture, no objective conception of universal human rights is possible; second, legal positivists argue that any concept of the rule of law is likewise contingent upon the culture or society from which its rules originate. After clarifying the objections to universalism from both the relativist and the positivist, I answer these objections by advancing a theory that unites universalism with the positivist’s concept of a system of rules. This theory aspires to elucidate the key insights of universalism and positivism in terms of two formulations of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative. In so doing, universalism can take proper advantage of Kant’s notions of autonomy, freedom, and universal law to give an adequate account of what grounds the necessarily normative aspects of its theory. INTRODUCTION When Jacques Maritain addressed the UNESCO in 1948, he remarked on the problem of universalism in international human rights law: ‘How is an agreement conceivable among men assembled for the purpose of jointly accomplishing a task dealing with the future of the mind, who come from the four corners of the earth and who belong not only to different cultures and civilizations, but to different spiritual families and antagonistic schools of thought?’ 295 His inquiry was couched primarily as a practical problem; as Mary Glendon has pointed out, Maritain was asking about how actual agreement is possible in a committee with various people coming to the table with very different belief norms: ‘Was it really possible for the fledging United Nations to produce a document acceptable to delegates from fifty-eight countries containing four-fifths of the world's population?’ 296 One such challenge comes from the cultural relativist, who argues that no objective conception of universal human rights is possible, since any conception is contingent on the culture, society, or State in which it is based. Yet where the legitimacy and recognition of human rights law are challenged, such challenges aim at the ground of universal human rights. Casting the problem of universalism in this light presents a conceptual challenge to the idea that underlying international human rights law is a notion of universal validity. This is the problem of universalism writ large. 297 * J.D., Brooklyn Law School, 2013; A.M., Harvard University, 2005; B.A., Amherst College, 2000. As such, the legitimacy of any single conception is hopelessly subjective in scope. Such relativism is dangerous, as it threatens to legitimize oppression to minorities based on the value of our cultural differences. This, in turn, leads to a diminished recognition of the rights of traditionally oppressed minorities, such as the rights of women, as well as 295 Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Univ. of Chicago Press 1951) 77. 296 Mary Glendon, A World Anew (Random House 2001) 50. 297 See e.g., Guyora Binder, ‘Cultural Relativism and Cultural Imperialism in Human Rights Law’ (1999) 5 Buff. Hum. Rights L. Rev. 211 (acknowledging that ‘the [universalism-cultural relativism] debate presumes that to assert the cultural relativity of justice is to deny the legitimacy of international human rights law,’ though the Article goes on to challenge how this debate is framed); John Tilley, ‘Moral Arguments for Cultural Relativism’ (1999) 17 Neth. Q. Hum. Rights 31 (defining cultural relativism and listing classic sources of the position).