Rites as Rights
Though some recent discussion has focused on the interplay between religion and human rights,
still the idea that human rights be understood in the context of religious ritual may strike
Western ethicians as problematic at best. Since the Enlightenment the Western philosophical
approach has sought to establish a strong foundation for human rights largely by highlighting the
trans-cultural and trans-historical aspects of human dignity, which in turn ought to be
acknowledged and protected by universal norms applicable to all peoples and contexts. In this
perspective human rights are articulated as an individual's set of political and economic rights
which are expressed in documents such as the American Declaration of Independence and Bill of
Rights, as well as multi-national documents such as the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights