The Problematic Compatibility Between the Universality of Human Rights and Cultural and Religious Particularity: An Analytical Study of the Libyan Legal System

Abstract

The changes Libya is witnessing in this new political phase, and the repeated calls to restructure the international agreements to which the Libyan state is bound, particularly those related to human rights, constitute a compelling legal case. This situation necessitates a study of the complex relationship between the principles of universality and particularity in human rights, and the need to adopt the principles that govern them. It is well-known that Libya, despite the issues raised about its status, has always been part of the universality of human rights, yet it has consistently striven to maintain its right to be different in the name of its religious, cultural, and historical particularities.

This particularity is precisely what this study seeks to address, by posing several questions concerning the need to distinguish between the legal status of human rights principles globally and their status in Libya. Therefore, this study sought to develop future visions that the legal adaptation of human rights principles in Libya in particular could reach, by studying the stages of development of this adaptation during the political periods that the country went through since the declaration of its independence in 1951, passing through the period of Colonel Gaddafi’s rule and the political upheavals that the country witnessed during his rule and his adoption of the Jamahiriya system, up to the end of his rule after the fall of his regime in 2011, which we can therefore consider as a time frame for the research, during which several research methods were relied upon, including the historical method and the analytical method.