Many writers reject the notion of universal human rights, insisting on their historically recent, Western-secular character. Other theorists emphasize mutual exchange between human rights and systems such as Confucianism, Buddhism, or Islam. They celebrate a common ground that would appear, moreover, to enhance the case for universality. This article acknowledges that common ground but rejects the view that it can strengthen the case for universality. Any such ‘exchange’, far from mutual, turns out to be dictated entirely by human rights. Familiar rhetoric about the supposed flexibility of human rights law, which would suggest genuinely interactive relationships between it and other belief systems, flatly contradicts its higher-law claims. Genuinely flexible human rights could only ever arise either (a) in the trivial sense that any broadly formulated legal rule ends up applied to a range of situations, or (b) in the untenable sense that human rights law would accommodate serious violations.

中文翻译：

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灵活普遍性的神话：人权与比较自然主义的局限

许多作家拒绝普遍人权的概念，坚持其历史上最近的西方世俗特征。其他理论家强调人权与儒教、佛教或伊斯兰教等制度之间的相互交流。他们庆祝一个共同点，而且似乎可以加强普遍性的理由。本文承认共同点，但拒绝认为它可以加强普遍性的理由的观点。任何这样的“交换”，远非相互的，结果证明完全是由人权决定的。关于人权法所谓的灵活性的熟悉言论，这表明人权法与其他信仰体系之间存在真正的互动关系，这与其更高的法律主张完全矛盾。