Testing the Limits of Human Rights’ Dynamism: A Comparative Study of Afghan Women’s Rights Under the Taliban Regimes (1996, 2021)

Abstract

While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) deems human rights as universal and uniformly applicable to all societies, John Rawls’s idea of rights offers a narrower account of human rights which would be differential and acceptable to different societies and people. The notion emphasises that human rights move on a spectrum of continual development with regard to particularities and changing needs of different societies. Such an approach to human rights, Rawls argues, leads to better implementation of international human rights. Rawls’s analysis of human rights’ dynamic nature, however, remains confined only to macro-level variation of human rights among different societies. This article argues that human rights also vary within the same society. It charts how Afghan women’s conception of human rights has evolved from one period of the Taliban rule to another. This evolution indicates how, with 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. The article suggests that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) should not ignore this evolution and development. Rather, it can seize the opportunity to cooperate with the international community and foreign powers to implement women’s rights within a middle framework between human rights notions of Rawls and the UDHR.