| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
Fiscal Year 1995: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1994: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
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| Research Abstract |
This research commenced with an attempt to investigate a possibility of establishing an regional institution to protect human rights. However, it was soon revealed that there is not only a slightest possibility of institutionalization but there is even an antipathy on the concept of human rights in this region. The recent controversy on the "social clause" clearly shows this trend.
The research, therefore, changed its course towards focussing on the issue of the social clause, thereby investigating the crossroad of the economic and human rights questions in the Asian region. It found that the amalgamation of the two different fields was difficult to achieve and, furthermore, that the Asian people felt a kind of uneasiness before the notion of human rights. Even if it is true that the trend is to dismiss human rights as a Western notion, it must be critically observed that Asia, which is showing an extremely rapid economic growth superseding the West, can not simply ignore social dimensions of the growth.
Taking into consideration the other matter of fact, namely that some of the power elites of certain Asian countries are making full use of the uneasiness commonly felt by the general public at hearing the notion of human rights, it is now highest time for Asians to come up with their own theory of human rights based on a sound and serious scientific research. There are a few sporadic signs of this initiative shown by Asian scholars who still owe their higher education to institutions in the West. The present research will thus attain its purpose once all the fresh ideas in Asia can be followed up and a sort of synthesis drawn or even presented.
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