This Master's thesis examines the influence of cultural relativism in justifying violations of international norms of universal human rights. Research in the Master's thesis is framed within the theory of social constructivism, which assumes that norms, discourses, identities and the role of states in the international community are the product of the social environment, and therefore they must be treated as such. Despite their formal international legal commitment to the protection of universal human rights, many states continue to blatantly violate human rights, justifying those violations with cultural, social and historical particularities. All this is happening within the framework of increasing deviations from the commitment to respect international human rights norms. Such deviations are justified by beliefs that the human rights norms do not reflect all cultures equally and that their universality is actually a reflection of the Western world, and therefore deviations from these norms are justified in non-Western social environments. The Master's thesis examines the dichotomy between proponents of universalism and cultural relativism and, using the example of the freedom of speech in the People's Republic of China and in the Islamic Republic of Iran, it demonstrates that cultural relativism with its characteristics can be abused by political elites to justify human rights violations. This makes it harder to protect the universal human rights of individuals in countries that violate them under the disguise of cultural relativism.
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