The United Nations Organization was established in 1945 on the basis of "faith in fundamental human rights." It furthermore committed itself to promoting "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion." Member States solemnly pledged themselves "to take joint and separate action in co-operation with the Organization" for the achievement of that commitment. In the first twenty years of its existence, the United Nations in its human rights agenda concentrated on norm creation. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) provided a "Rule Book" to the concepts of human rights and fundamental freedoms and served as the basis of expanding the exact meaning of those concepts even further. It is fair to say that the Organization in those first few years succeeded in gathering universal support for the agreement of faith in human rights. The agreement proclaimed: "the idea of human rights is accepted in principle by all governments regardless of other ideology, regardless of political, economic, or social condition." A few years ago, while still president of the United States, Bill Clinton's visit to China renewed the worldwide debate over the relationship between nations with different human rights standards. On the occasion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' 50th anniversary, it was not surprising to address the challenges posed by postmodernism to a universality norm of human rights. In this essay I will attempt to determine if a universal norm of human rights is a reality. Furthermore I will focus on China, Islamic/Arabic nations, and the United States in my comments as examples of different systems of comprehension of human rights.
             The magnitude of the horrors of the Second World War and the need to protect individuals from abuses on that scale provided sufficient reason...