The article expounds how the international doctrine of human rights originated historically and substantially from the European intellectual traditions; nonetheless the origins of the doctrine do not impede the universalization of human rights as worldwide general standards for states and societies of different social, political, cultural, and religious types. The problem of the universality of human rights goes far beyond doctrinal issues: international human rights pretend to regulate internal relations and interstate interactions as a principle of international law, but the variety of political systems question drastically the possibility and appropriateness of such a universality. For the research the following method were employed: comparative and formal legal analysis, historical studies, deconstruction, critical approaches in law, posthumanistic apparatus. The author argues that the invention and development of the universal human rights relate both to the adoption of the fundamental legal documents and the apprehension of the tragedies of the world wars and totalitarianism. During the UN period the international human rights standards dominated the dynamics of the international law and significantly influenced its stricture and substance. For conclusion the author puts that the universality of human rights is not their descriptive feature but a normative claim. The latter is strengthened by instrumentalization of human rights as a general form of international legal discourse. Being such a form human rights are attributed to non-human beings to ensure their international legal protection — to artificial legal persons, fauna, flora, nature as a whole.