The moral and conceptual underpinnings of human rights have been the subject of study starting from the time the idea of universal rights, natural or human, were put forward. The extents to which such underpinnings are present in countries with differing religious, cultural and social traditions have been a matter of debate. In recent years we have seen strong opposition concerning the universalism of human rights from those who defend the cultural relativism of rights and who deny the moral right to enforce such universal human rights. A related question has also been whether the ideological basis of human rights discourse is specific to the Judeo-Christian tradition and whether it could be adequately justified in other traditions…