The universality of human rights and the UN human rights agenda: the impact of the shift of power to the East and the resurgence of the BRICS

A dominant common perception is that the UN agenda of human rights is of Western origin and that such Western countries deploy their intellectual capital and financial power to support human rights worldwide. There is fear that the perceived economic and corresponding potential political decline of the West will have a detrimental impact on the international human rights agenda. This article examines whether the UN human rights agenda is still a Western agenda. What do we mean by the ‘West’? What is the basis of the claim of the universality of human rights? What are the challenges and opportunities offered to the UN human rights agenda by the rise of multi-polarism or the resurgence of the BRICS countries in general and China and India in particular? This article argues that the rise of the BRICS countries in general and China in particular is likely to diminish the policing role of the West, but not undermine the essence of the ethos that lay behind the UN human rights agenda. The impetus to continue to promote the value of human rights everywhere is in principle secure, but making the protection of human rights a reality for hundreds of millions of people depends on the reform of the UN’s human rights system.