Herrlich ist der Orient
Übers Mittelmeer gedrungen;
Nur wer Hafis liebt und kennt,
Weiss was Calderon gesungen.
Wer sich selbst und andere kennt,
Wird auch hier erkennen:
Orient und Okzident
Sind nicht mehr zu trennen.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: West-östlicher Diwan

It seems we no longer comfortably take a seat on this West-östlicher Diwan, a semantic space which had been united by a hyphen and was held together by an undividable, shared space and the common logos of poetry, it looks as if the common seat has been separated into two distinct, if not opposed entities, namely East and West. However what is meant by East and West? Often it is related to the problem posed by cultural differentialism, in the special form posed by s.c. “Asian Values” and Muslim exceptions. The matter in hand is the controversial issue that relates to the potential universality of human rights in the face of the evidence of cultural diversity. The debate on Asian values has taken place both within and outside Asia; Asian values having been contrasted to “Western values”, and its relevance is clearly evident in terms of the broader issue of the respective duties of States and individuals to one another. It thus also has a bearing on the protection of the individual and States’ obligations in that regard.

Asian values have been defined as putting emphasis on a consensual approach, communitarism rather than individualism, social order and harmony, respect for elders, discipline, a paternalistic State and the primary role of government in economic development, linked to the premise that “there are values and patterns of behaviour that are common to Asian countries and peoples”. In contrast, “Western values” have been associated with transparency, accountability, global competitiveness, a universalistic outlook and universal practices, and an emphasis on private initiatives and the independence of the private sector. No matter how the issues surrounding Asian values are characterized, it is clear that those values are, or have become, relevant to the broader discussions on human rights concepts and international human rights law. As such, it must be asked what relation they bear to international humanitarian law, to the protection that law provides for the individual in the context of armed conflict and to the duties it imposes on States.

Supporters of universal human rights frequently dismiss the claims of some Asian governments as the self-serving rethoric of dictators and (mis)represent their position as a morally reprehensible and philosophically absurd anything-goes cultural relativism. Defenders of Asian values often respond by attacking Western governments for past and present violations of human rights, and accuse them of cultural imperialism and ethnocentricity. Clearly, authoritarian regimes have at times used the rethoric of Asian values for self-serving end, playing cultural card to deny citizens their rights and then fend off foreign criticism. Just as clearly there are many different voices within Asia, and anyone professing to speak for all Asians or of "Asian values" runs the danger of discounting these voices. Yet we need to be careful not to dismiss "Asian values" as merely a cynical strategy seized on by authoritarian regimes to deny Asian citizens their rights. More philosophical and nuanced accounts point out that, whatever Asian governments political motivations, there are legitimate differences in values at stake.

Few governments today admit that they violate central human rights such as freedom of speech, or prohibitions against slavery and torture. Violations of human rights are denied or excused, but seldom defended. The Bangkok Declaration of 1993 changed this. In this declaration, representatives of Asian states dismissed civil and political rights as contrary to "Asian values". Singapore Prime Minister Lee, in particular, located Asian values within the tradition of Confucian ethics. It is quite evident, however, that Asian values in the measure in which can be considered of religious and traditional nature cannot be identified with the Confucian tradition, if for no other reason because this hypothesis would have excluded from the range of Asian values all the values originated within different ASIAN religious traditions like Buddhism, Islam and Jainism. Moreover, it has been often suspected that Lee Kuan Yew statement could have been inspired much more in interest for power than in true religious belief. Indonesia developed a sophisticated narrative of Rechtsstaat that asserted the irrelevance of separation of powers and elevated the state to a position of almost unchecked authority. The Bangkok-statement has received much attention, particularly since it appeared immediately prior to the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights and with this debate came in fact the idea itself of some Asian values to respect and to consider relevant against any alternative vision pretending to present standard human rights as purely universal.

Universalists advocates of human rights argue that there is an expansive overlapping consensus regarding human rights as set forth in the so-called International Bill of Human rights – the Universal Declaration of Hman rights, the International Convenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights. In response some Asian governments argue that the hard core of universal right is extremely limited and there is still ample room for reasonable people to disagree over the content, justification, interpretation and implementation of rights. Although there are many rights that people agree are desirable when stated at very high level of abstraction, agreement at this level of abstraction is not helpful in resolving most pressing social issue. What may seem like a pragmatic or overlapping consensus quickly break down once one moves beyond discussions about the desirability of the broad wish-list of rights contained in human rights documents to the difficult issues of justifications for such rights and how they are interpreted and implemented in practice. Undeniably, there is a greater acceptance of the general idea of human rights than in the past, and even more agreement among more countries and people about particular human rights and how they are interpreted and implemented. There is also good reason to believe that the scope of agreement will increase over time.

Some deplorable Western traditions have dismissed human rights well into this century, and there are strands and components of theories of human rights in many Non-Western normative traditions. A rejection of "Western" human rights on the basis of "Asian" values is therefore unfortunate, for several reasons. When a government insists on distinct and unified Western, Asian, or African traditions, it ignores, as pointed out by A. Sen, the diversity of cultures within and across geographical boundaries. Moreover, such labels serve to hide discrepancies between the views of the government and the citizens. There are shared values across "civilizations", and disagreements within them, sufficient to question whether conflicts about human rights are due to a "clash of civilizations”. Reference to "Asian values" should not be taken as an a priori endorsement of the concept as meaningful or useful, or of "Asian values" over other values. Asia is a big place, with tremendous diversity – too much critics suggest, to speak about a singular set of "Asian values". There is no Asia in the same sense. “There is no common tradition in Asia to define the Great Book of the East” , as the American Orientalist de Bary put it in a valiant attempt to construct an Asian canon.

Not even the Pan-Asian Inter Asia Cultural Studies has a fully Pan-Asia basis, restricting itself to the huge area from India to Japan (inclusive). The range of the grand Singaporean millennium conference “We Asians” is the same, repeating the stretch a century earlier by Okakura Tenshin and a couple of other Japanese artists going to Calcutta and linking up with Bengali culture for a Pan-Asia effort. On the other hand, a pluralism of "Asian values" is still Asian values. There is nothing wrong with noting the diversity of values and still claiming that they are Asian. Nor need each country within Asia share every single feature. There may still be dominant patterns within Asia. It is true, that "Asian values" is a construct. But then so are "the West" and "liberalism", both of which encompass a tremendous diversity of views. Nevertheless, there are still dominant trends in Western thought. Liberalism clearly has a stronger hold than communitarism in the West, for example, whereas the opposite seems to be true in much of Asia (though perhaps collectivism is more apt description than communitarism). Any comparative project must begin by constructing categories that highlight certain features and thus simplify to some extent quotidian reality. The problem has not been that the East and the West, Asian values and Western values are constructs, but that they have been overly simple constructs that lacked a firm foundation.

Because "Asian values" has been tainted by misuse by politically oppressive regimes, one suggestion is to replace it with "values in Asia". This change has to be salutary effect of signaling a desire to move away from the overtly political use of the term by some Asian governments toward a more sophisticated approach sensitive to pluralism within Asia. But eliminating references to Asian values and replacing it with "values in Asia " will not put an end to substantive debates about the universality of rights or shed any light whatsoever on how rights are to be interpreted or implemented in particular contexts in Asia. At best, simply shifts the focus to a less grand level, whether that be country by country, area of law by area of law, or issue by issue. From the substantive point of view, human rights, as they are usually conceived in the international context, should be mediated by the network of cultures and historical situations. Otherwise, at least for all those that belong to cultures other than that of the West, human rights will never be seriously rooted, particularly within societies where many social classes have experienced a hastily forced westernization.