1. Identify the three fundamental characteristics of human rights. Discuss the ways in which these three characteristics can advance the global human rights agenda or significantly weaken it. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), human rights “are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color , religion, language or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination.” The three fundamental characteristics of human rights are universal, inalienable and indivisible. Human rights are universal because they apply to every human being regardless of his or her origin, economic or social status, and religion, among others. Inalienable refers to rights that once given to a person cannot be taken away. And human rights are indivisible, in the sense that either all rights are granted or none of them. In other words, human beings must have all their rights and not just some (all or nothing), since “the improvement of one right facilitates the progress of others. Likewise, the deprivation of one right affects others." The three fundamental characteristics of human rights, universal, inalienable and indivisible, can advance or undermine the global human rights agenda. One way in which these characteristics can undermine the global human rights agenda is through cultural relativism. According to Diana Ayton-Shenker, cultural relativism is “the assertion that human values, far from being universal, vary greatly across different cultural perspectives.” In other words, for a cultural relativist, universal human rights mean essentially nothing since, depending on which culture you belong to, your rights would be different. This greatly undermined