Fifteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

John Rawls’s theory of rights offers a narrow account of human rights which would be differential and acceptable to different societies and people. The notion emphasizes that human rights move on a spectrum of continual development with regards to particularities and changing needs of different cultures. Such an approach to human rights, Rawls argues, leads to better implementation of international human rights law. Rawls’s analysis of human rights’ dynamic nature, however, remains confined only to macro-level variation of human rights among different societies. This paper suggests that human rights also vary within the same society. Through empirical data collected by the researcher (author), the paper charts how Afghan women’s conception of human rights has evolved from one period of the Taliban rule to another. This evolution indicates how, by the passage of time and the effect of external factors, new variants of women’s rights have emerged and became fundamental to the Afghan society. By doing so, this paper draws the attention of human rights lawmakers to the micro-level metamorphosis of human rights within the same societal context. Attending to the significance of this local-scale variation, the lawmakers would be able to implement human right law universally but in a more dynamic, flexible, and contextually sensitive manner.