"Cultural Relativism in the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council", by Roger Lloret Blackburn

Can cultural relativism be witnessed during the UPR? For the purpose of his analysis, Roger Blackburn uses the three main UPR documents (the National report, the UN Compilation and the Summary of Stakeholders) and focuses on the countries that scholars identify as belonging to the cultural relativist group (China, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, Pakistan, Vietnam and Yemen). Extracts:

"[…] the research for this working paper leads us to the conclusion that all states of the HRC have good and bad human practises, and that they all accept the validity of the UPR and share the opinio juris that human rights do indeed exist."

"It follows from this working paper that the countries that today defend cultural relativism are substantially different from those identified by scholars in the last decades."

"Regrettably, the posture of many of the Western states that defended humanitarian aims and respect to human rights has become ambiguous, and this has resulted in the erosion of their credibility and in the reinforcing of cultural relativist fears."