Human rights and peace : Clashing cultures

Abstract

Individuals and institutions that embody human rights and peace face the challenging task of understanding the strain between the two fields. Scholars in both fields have offered various explanations as to the source and nature of this strain. Yet, many of these explanations seem to fall short in explaining the inability to ease convergence. Personalities, priorities, and programmatic differences all feed into the strain. Still, the incompatibilities seem to run deeper. This article searches for a schema to understand why convergence is such a challenge. Human rights and peace are so interwoven both intellectually and practically that overlap and interaction is inevitable. I argue that disconnects between human rights and peace work are not merely personal or technical; they are Human rights and peace: Clashing cultures cultural. That is, human rights and peace advance distinct ways of thinking, behaving, speaking, understanding, and treating conflicts and injustices. These cultures clash on the definitive question of how threats to humanity ought to be dealt with. Seeing human rights and peace as cultures that diverge at pivotal points helps to capture the depth of the divide between the two fields. I argue that while human rights and peace do not mesh on the themes of violence, conflict, and harmony, the most substantive incompatibility relates to the way the two fields treat negotiation and dialogue. Rather than extending this argument to a nihilistic conclusion that convergence is impossible, I consider the possibility of a shift in the way both fields approach one another. As cultures, human rights and peace provide different dispositions which, in combination, lends to significant versatility. Bi-cultural institutions and individuals benefit significantly from the ability to shift back and forth between different patterns and dispositions. In this sense, divergence is not a threat, but an attribute.