Human Rights and Social Work: Philosophical and Ethical Reflections on a Possible Dialogue between East Asia and the West

Abstract

The “West” is inclined to blame Asian countries, especially China, for its disrespect of human rights without looking at it's own record of human rights violations! This makes a fair dialogue very difficult till improbable. Social work on the international level can't avoid this dialogue if it wants to live up to its internationally consensual documents which all refer to human rights. The thesis of this article is, that it will only succeed, if it clarifies some philosophical and ethical premisses of so-called “western” and “oriental/asian” thinking. Thus, the article tries to show that concepts of “holism”, “atomism/individualism” and “systemic thinking” might be helpful for a “rejonder” and discussion platform for the analysis of different modes of thinking about ethical issues. A systemic approach tries to avoid the problematic and combine the positive aspects of individualistic and holistic approaches. An example for this combination is the “Asian Human Rights Charter: A People's Charter” of 1998 which doesn't divide the freedom and participatory versus social rights, a divide which is typical – and problematic – for the western version.

Keywords:

• Asian and Western Human Rights
• Individualistic Ethics
• Holistic Ethics
• Systemic Ethics and East–West-Dialogue

Notes

¹A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2010 Joint World Conference on Social Work and Development of the IASSW, 11 June, in Hong Kong, after having received the Katherine Kendall Award 2010.

²See the African Banjul Charter of 1981 at: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm and later in this article the Bangkok Asian Charter of 1993.

³Legitimate wishes or aspirations are those that do not constrain or hinder the fulfilment of the needs of other individuals.

⁴See Victoria Hui, ‘Confucius and Patriotism: Speak from the Heart’, South China Morning Post, 14 February 2004.

⁵In December 2009 the UN Assembly ratified a protocol in relation to Part I on social rights: it adds to the general state reports and monitoring processes the possibility of individual complaints—a result of year-long lobbying.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Silvia Staub-Bernasconi

Silvia Staub-Bernasconi was professor for social problems, social work, theories, methods and human rights at the Zurich School of Social Work (1967–97), the University of Fribourg, Switzerland (1984–2007), and the Technical University Berlin (1997–2003); she was a founding member, director and lecturer of the master's degree in ‘Social Work as Human Rights Profession’ in Berlin (2002–10); and a Member of the Academic Board and lecturer in ‘International Doctoral Studies in Social Work’ (INDOSOW). She undertakes counselling in community and human rights work from the local to the international level