Rights Beautiful Collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik or tradition.1 As a matter of fact, this is precisely what did actually happen in the great liberal revolutions over two centuries ago in the course of modernization in the West, and which in turn inspire the ideal of freedom and democracy around the world. Secondly, this simple truth about human rights further means that, along with universality, there is bound to be proliferation and interrelatedness of rights and liberties, as well as obligations, in a great variety of forms and substances under specific historical, social, and economic circumstances. This is well reflected in the increasing number of international human rights instruments created by the democratically-inspired part of the UN. It is an ongoing and never-ending process.2 And lately, the UN General Assembly comes up with the Millennium Declaration 2000, summing up various aspects of human predicaments into the global and common purview, thus broadening the scope and perspective of human rights promotion and protection even further along with the issues of development, poverty, and environment. And finally, there need not be discrepancies and contradictions between universality or generality and specificity or diversity inherent in human rights discourse. Indeed, in order for the dialogue to be meaningful, it must needs be in the spirit of mutual learning based on the shared principle of human dignity and fundamental freedom. To start with, all the 1 2 Tony Evans, “Introduction: power, hegemony and universality of human rights”, in Tony Evans, ed., Human Rights Fifty Years On, Manchester University Press, 1998, p.4 Heiner Bielefeld, “Western Versus Islamic Human Rights Conception”? A Critique of Cultural Essentialism in the Discussion of Human Rights.” Political Theory, vol. 28, No. 1, February 2000, pp. 96-97. As Jacques Maritain observes: No declaration of human rights will ever be exhaustive and final. It will ever go handin-hand with the state of moral consciousness and civilization at a given moment in history. Cited in Joseph A. Camilleri, “Human Rights, Cultural Diversity and Conflict Resolution: The Asia Pacific Context, Pacific Review, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1994, p. 20. 68 OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF THAILAND