Justice & Law Quote by Shirin Ebadi

Ebadi’s line works like a legal brief dressed as a moral dare. By calling human rights a “universal standard,” she isn’t just making a feel-good claim about shared values; she’s staking out jurisdiction. Universality is the word that lets rights travel across borders, sects, and governments that insist their customs place them beyond outside scrutiny. For a lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize-winning Iranian activist, that’s the point: to deny authoritarian states the alibi of “culture” when they police women, punish dissent, or launder repression through religious language.

The second sentence is the rhetorical judo. Instead of framing human rights as a Western export (the most common accusation in postcolonial and Islamist critiques), she folds them into “every religion and every civilization.” It’s an inclusive move with an edge: if your tradition is invoked to restrict rights, Ebadi suggests, you’re not defending faith or heritage; you’re selectively reading it. The phrase “component of” is careful, almost strategic. She’s not claiming religions are identical or always rights-forward. She’s arguing there is enough internal moral vocabulary - dignity, justice, compassion, the sanctity of life - to make rights arguments from within a culture rather than against it.

Context matters: Ebadi built her career under a regime that narrowed women’s legal status while insisting it was authentically Islamic. Her intent is to unmask that as politics, not piety, and to recruit believers and skeptics alike into a coalition where human rights are not foreign pressure but native obligation.