The dystopia between a universal "Empire of meaning" and local contexts : a study of humanity, UN dominance and the interaction process of sensemaking

Abstract: There seems to be a gap between human rights theory and human rights practice. This gap disables rights to be applicable in practice in a meaningful manner. By theorizing this gap with Neil Thompson’s theory of “thinking” and “doing” while shedding light to this gap with a postmodern flashlight, the study shows that the concepts of human rights, human dignity, culture and ideology are in need to be addressed and added to this discourse and certainly to the overall discourse of human rights. A way of doing this is to make rights in the vernacular, as Sally Engle Merry suggests. What will be the consequences of vernacular rights? What is needed is thus to translate universal values into local contexts by acknowledging the cultural dimension of rights and to learning through experience.