International Protection of Human Rights in Africa, Asia and the Middle East [Introduction]

It is well known that contemporary international law is influenced – at least with regard to the content of its norms – by an increasing concern for the protection of human rights. As a result, international law scholars nowadays put the topics related to human rights into the foreground. However, they usually carry out their research on the basis of the implicit (and axiomatic) presupposition that human rights are almost exclusively shaped and dominated by a ‘Western’ vision. If you look more closely, such vision affects human rights not only in the context of international law, but also in that of legal and social sciences in general. One can even take a broader view, adding that human rights are commonly perceived as a ‘Western’ product.