Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

Ever since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, there have been complaints that the Declaration is not culturally sensitive. In 1981, a group of Islamic scholars proposed the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, and then in 1990, the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam was adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is an intergovernmental body made up of fifty-seven member states. In 2004, The Arab League adopted the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which defends the right of national self-determination and the “sovereignty of the law and its contribution to the protection of universal and interrelated human rights. In 2008, the OIC established its Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) with the goal of promoting human rights in member states and upholding the fundamental freedoms for all people without distinction as to race, sex, or religion. Nevertheless, many still question the compatibility between the Islamic and Western visions of human rights.