The Practical Model of Human Rights in China and its World Significance from the Perspective of the Realization" of the Universality of Human Rights

In the 30 years since the adoption of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, the importance of the universality of human rights has been universally recognized by all parties involved and even by the international community, and has become an important cornerstone of international cooperation in human rights protection. “Human rights have become the sole normative basis of the New World Order and have thus permeated almost all areas of activity of the United Nations”. However, from the domestic perspective, the realization of the universality of human rights in different countries is extremely different or even varies greatly, and the reason for this is that countries have chosen different practice modes for the protection of human rights. It can be said that, after a long period of recognition and development, the universality of human rights should include, in addition to the traditional understanding of the universality of the subject and the universality of the content, the connotation of the “realization” of universality. The so-called “realization” of human rights means that human rights become a reality or a fact, including respecting human rights, protecting human rights, helping people to enjoy human rights, and providing conditions to ensure human rights. Human rights universality is not only the universality of content, but also the universality of realization. Human rights without good realization are only words on paper, a “blank check”, and fundamentally lose the vitality and vigour of human rights. This makes the universal realization of human rights an important goal for all countries in the development of human rights cooperation, and an important measure of the universality of human rights in each country. In other words, the universal realization of human rights depends on a good model of realization that allows for the profound realization of human rights in terms of both content and extent. Different countries have different models of human rights realization. From the perspective of the nature and characteristics of the model, compared to the Western model of human rights, which guarantees unity, the Chinese model of human rights practice is more comprehensive and systematic, more conducive to the universal realization of human rights, and has visible comparative advantages.

Reflections on the Western model of the realization of the universality of human rights

Human rights philosophy was first put forward by the Western countries, and in particular, the Western countries have a relatively deep accumulation of theories on the universality of human rights, such as the “theory of natural rights”, “theory of human dignity” and “theory of universal morality”, which have all enriched and improved the meaning of the universality of human rights. In recent times, the Western world seems to have held the power of interpretation of human rights. “Ideological struggles have divided the world into two camps, and the United States has always symbolised limited government, representing the rule of law and individual freedom”. However, while the "veneer" of human rights in the West may seem extremely glamorous, at present there are many problems and loopholes beneath the glamorous surface, the more obvious of which is the extent to which human rights are realized. Although many concepts and theories of the universality of human rights have been put forward in the history of Western countries, they have not been fully and effectively implemented in practice, and not only do many of them still remain in “books”, but many of them have been ideologized and even become realistic tools for the US and the West to seek human rights “hegemony” or state bullying. This reveals that we need to fully examine the Western model of human rights from the perspective of the “realization” of the universality of human rights.

1. The “passive protection” approach hinders the implementation of the concept of universality of human rights. By passive protection, we mean that the West has solidified human rights as the outcome of the struggle against feudal tyranny and theocracy, centred on the non-interventionist obligations of the state and government. The history of the development of the Western concept of human rights shows that, as one of the ways for the Western bourgeoisie to pursue class interests, human rights philosophy was characterised by “grand narrative” in various historical contexts. Whether it was the Renaissance when human rights were used as a powerful weapon against feudal theocracy and to awaken the individual consciousness of the people, or after the Second World War when it was one of the cornerstones for rebuilding international order, human rights philosophy has constantly been added with many shining “auras” in a macro sense. However, beneath this aura lies a long-standing problem with the Western human rights model, which is that the passive protection model does not effectively “realize” these human rights philosophies and objectives. In particular, after many Western countries have solidified the above-mentioned human rights achievements in the form of laws, they tend to focus on the protection of civil and political rights, limiting the activities of human rights protection in practice to these areas and considering them as the absolute basis of human rights protection. However, this is in fact contradictory to the universal requirements of human rights, and the practice of human rights, which is constructed around “individual freedoms”, has been biased towards a passive approach to the protection of human rights, mainly through an ex post protection mode by resorting to the legal system alone, and this limitation in means and scope is where the West has lagged behind in the cause of human rights. For this reason, Western politicians promise to change these issues in almost every election and use them as a political gimmick to attract votes. For example, in every US presidential election, almost every presidential candidate has promised additional investment and support to improve people's livelihoods, with more famous names such as improving health care policies and providing relief for the homeless. However, these have proven to be nothing more than “bad checks”, a political overdraft on the universality of human rights.

2. The “hegemonisation” of human rights has undermined the theoretical basis for the realization of the universality of human rights. In contrast to the “passive” model of protecting human rights at home, the US and Western countries are actively promoting human rights hegemony at the international level. In contrast to the colonial hegemony of violence and war, an ideological exportation and hegemony based on so-called human rights is gradually spreading. This is reflected in the fact that some Western countries demand universal human rights values from others and interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, while the human rights problems in their own countries are proliferating and even reaching the point of desolation. For example, the United States and other countries claim to be “beacons of human rights” and thus demand that many countries in the world follow the “American” human rights programme, but their own human rights problems are numerous, which is a typical example of the “darkness under light”. It has not yet signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and is plagued by problems with guns and drugs, racial discrimination and hatred; not only that, but it also commits massive human rights violations, abusive use of force and unilateral sanctions. All these have fundamentally affected the realization of the universality of human rights in the international community. The use of human rights as a tool for the pursuit of hegemony has caused some Western countries to lose focus on the realization of human rights, and to obstruct the realization of human rights in other countries, replacing the universality of human rights with a “universality of hegemonism”, and exporting the ideology on a wide scale. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, has publicly declared that the protests in Hong Kong, China, “a beautiful sight to behold”, but some US politicians have denounced the demonstrations in their own country as "riots". Such confusion about the connotation of the universality of human rights continues to impede the progress of the world's human rights cause and is a ruse to sacrifice the interests of the world's human rights cause for political gains. To sum up, in essence, the theoretical basis for the realization of the universality of human rights is to regard human rights as the common divisor of a community with a shared future for mankind and global good governance. Therefore, the use of human rights as a weapon of hegemony will fundamentally undermine this value consensus.

China's practice of the realization of the universality of human rights

The path and model for the realization of the universality of China’s human rights are fundamentally different from the western model. On the one hand, China actively promotes the development of human rights in the form of state initiative and gives full play to the active role of the state on the basis of passive protection, thereby realizing the universal implementation of human rights. At the same time, China's human rights model is firmly opposed to the complication, politicization and hegemony of human rights philosophy, and insists on understanding human rights from the full connotation of their universality in order to maximise the development of concrete human rights. In other words, China adheres to the model of “one core, two mechanisms and three stages” in human rights implementation, with “the free development of all people” as the core, with the party, the government and state organs working together to play their roles, adhering to the practice model of matching policy and law, combining positive promotion with passive protection, and integrating the three stages of protection, before, during and after events. We will realize harmonious development of civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights.

1. Coordinated protection of multiple rights from a universal perspective. China has a very systematic, comprehensive and profound understanding of the universal content of human rights. General Secretary Xi Jinping has proposed that “the connotation of human rights is comprehensive and rich, and must be comprehensively addressed and systematically promoted”. In terms of understanding the content of human rights, unlike the Western model, which broadly focuses on the narrow content of civil rights and political power, China places greater emphasis on the protection of various types of rights that are closely related to the people. For example, the protection of economic, social and cultural rights, the rights of ethnic minorities, women and children, and the elderly, as well as the development of a national human rights action plan, have been developed in a variety of ways to achieve the coordinated protection of multiple types of human rights. Moreover, China actively promotes the theoretical exploration and development of the new generation of human rights, focusing on the coordination and cooperation between the content of human rights and development of the times and social progress, so as to better ensure the implementation of individual human rights protection.

2. Insist on the coordination of policy and law, and realize the combination of positive promotion and passive protection of human rights. Policy and law are the two basic resources of modern state governance. The issue of legal protection of human rights has been extensively discussed in Western academic and practice circles, but the positive significance of policies for the realization of human rights has apparently been overlooked. In fact, the formulation and introduction of relevant human rights protection and promotion policies in China is also key to promoting the implementation of human rights protection based on the rule of law. China promotes human rights development in the policy sense in the form of state initiative, using both resources of policy and law for human rights protection from the level of the normative system; at the same time, from the level of the implementation mechanism, it realizes that policy promotion and law guarantee are closely coordinated and work together to achieve a combination of positive promotion and passive protection of human rights. In particular, this mainly includes China's insistence on the unification of the authenticity and extensiveness of human rights protection; the full guarantee of basic rights such as the right to survival and the active realization of the right to equal development; and the integration of current human rights protection with the future development of human rights causes for mankind.

3. The three stages of prior, intermediate and post-event protection are connected. China has set up a sound mechanism for linking the protection of human rights before, during and after the event, so as to achieve the protection of human rights throughout the process. This mainly includes: beforehand, it is clear that scientific and complete human rights legislation is the basis for human rights protection. The focus is on realizing the construction of a legal system for preventive human rights protection in specific areas such as ecological protection, public security and social governance; during the event, adhering to a sound human rights enforcement system and clarifying the significance of the regulated operation of public power for human rights protection; ex post, adhering to the judicial system as the last line of defence for human rights protection, and focusing on solving problems such as an imperfect judicial system and an inadequate judicial system for human rights protection. This makes it possible for the universality of human rights not to remain in a single and flat dimension, but rather a perspective of development and change that provides a dynamic understanding of the realization of the universality of human rights, so that the universality of human rights can be implemented in a comprehensive and concrete manner.

The world significance of China's programme for the realization of the universality of human rights

The implementation and programme for the universality of human rights in China has not only effectively promoted and realized the development and progress of the human rights cause in China, but has also provided a beneficial reference for the development of the human rights cause worldwide. Particularly in the modern international community when the Western model of human rights is widely reported but remains controversial, China's human rights programme has gained worldwide recognition for its remarkable success, which vividly illustrates China's profound understanding of the universality of human rights, and in particular, it places greater emphasis on the concrete implementation of human rights from a perspective and dimension of “human rights realization”, which contradicts empty talk and hegemonism, the shortcomings of the Western human rights model, and provides a useful reference for the development of human rights cause worldwide.

1. The people-centered approach has laid the foundation for the realization of the universality of human rights. Human rights are generally defined as “the rights to which individuals or groups are entitled by virtue of being human beings”. Human rights are essentially the birthrights of human beings, regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion or any other status, and therefore the starting point for the cause of human rights must also be human. In 2018, in his congratulatory letter to the symposium commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated that China “embraces a human rights philosophy that centers on the people”. The development of the human rights cause in each country must give priority to the development of human rights of its own people and carry out international human rights cooperation for this purpose. In recent years, some Western countries have gradually abandoned this philosophy, and instead of targeting human rights, they focus on various political interests and self-interests to “entrap their own goods”. This has led some Western countries to pursue their political interests under the guise of achieving the universality of human rights, while at the same time their domestic human rights problems have intensified and they have grossly interfered with the development of human rights in other countries. The Chinese model of human rights implementation, however, fully embodies a systematic people-centred philosophy, which provides a conceptual basis for the development of human rights around the world.

2. Insisting on a variety of means and methods has enriched and developed the model of human rights realization. As mentioned above, Western countries emphasize passive protection and ex post relief of human rights, and legal protection is the main way of human rights implementation in Western countries. This model has gradually failed to achieve comprehensive protection of human rights in the rapidly changing and developing international society, and is gradually out of step with the current times. For example, in 2022 the US Federal Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade decision, which no longer protected women's right to abortion, causing an uproar in the US and around the world, with many US citizens taking to the streets in protest and discontent. This incident has severely undermined the confidence of American citizens who expect human rights to be guaranteed by law. In the US, there are even cases of children being raped and impregnated without being able to have an abortion. The US legal system has not only failed to protect human rights, but has even become an accomplice to human rights abuses itself, which is undoubtedly a retrograde step. In contrast, the “one core, two mechanisms, three stages” model of human rights implementation pioneered and adhered to by China attacks the “singularity” of the Western human rights model from a “whole process” perspective. It confirms that in today's rapidly developing and changing society, a comprehensive and pluralistic human rights implementation model is in line with the trend of history, and that the single, passive and post-event relief model of the Western human rights is bound to be gradually eliminated by the times.

3. Advocate the purity and practice of the cause of human rights and oppose human rights being held hostage by hegemony. From the perspective of the universality of human rights, the significant advantage of China's human rights implementation programme lies in the fact that it takes “human rights realization” as an important dimension of understanding the universality of human rights, with a pure and practical understanding of the human rights cause, and opposes being “armchair strategist”, and even more so, against the “entrapping their own goods”. Therefore, practice is a very important goal in China's human rights cause. It is necessary to examine the specific degree of the development of human rights cause from the perspective of practice. The current trend of the Western human rights model, on the other hand, is to increasingly ignore the concrete implementation and effects of human rights, and to focus more on the distracting and deceptive nature of the name, even adding the label of so-called “universal values”. In addition, some Western countries have even used the cause of human rights as a tool for hegemonic implementation, making it difficult to benefit their own people in concrete terms and even harmful to the cause of human rights worldwide. In this context, the purity and practicality of China's human rights implementation programme is like a fountain of fresh water that truly promotes the development of human rights in China and the world in a pragmatic style.

Conclusion

In current era, one of the important connotations of the universality of human rights is the universality of their realization. And only by being constantly realized can the human rights cause truly make a positive difference. The realization of the universality of human rights is not only an important scale for assessing the extent of human rights development, but also an important requirement for combating the use and coercion of human rights by hegemonists. China's human rights model fully embodies this practical outlook and fully demonstrates the great advantages of the Chinese model through its comprehensive and vivid human rights practice. This is not only an important element of the human rights system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, but also provides important inspiration for realizing the exchange and mutual appreciation of human rights civilization and promoting the formation of a just and reasonable new international human rights order.

(The author is vice dean of the Law School of Central South University)